Prosecutors in the United States of America said Genaro García Luna, former head of the Mexican equivalent of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations accepted millions of dollars stuffed in briefcases and delivered by members of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa drug cartel.
García Luna, who was arrested in Texas in 2019, however pleaded not guilty of the charges. The 54-year-old could face life in prison in the US but at a minimum, he would serve a mandatory minimum of 20 years, a statement from the Department of Justice said.
The verdict came after a four-week trial and three days of jury deliberation in the US District Court in Brooklyn, New York.
García Luna, who moved to the US after leaving office, is the highest-ranking Mexican official ever to be tried in the US, BBC reported.
A spokesperson for current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Jesús Ramírez Cuevas took to twitter to praise the decision.
He said, “Justice has arrived for the former squire of Felipe Calderón,” Mr Ramirez Cuevas wrote. “The crimes against our people will never be forgotten.”
García Luna served under former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, who oversaw a crackdown on drug cartels beginning in 2006.
Ioan Grillo, a Mexico-based British author and expert on Mexico’s criminal underworld, told BBC News the conviction has “big implications” for both the US and Mexico governments’ fight against corruption and organised crime.
“This could encourage prosecutors to go after other cases,” he said. “They took a certain risk by not having physical evidence and convicting him on testimony from drug traffickers.”
He added García Luna’s conviction could also help dissuade Mexican officials from being “openly corrupt”.
“If you’re a Mexican agent, you’ll be thinking about how much you expose yourself to the Americans,” he said.
The ex-minister – widely considered the architect of Mexico’s war on drugs – was said to have shared information with the Sinaloa drug cartel about its rivals and warned the group about law enforcement operations.
García Luna denied the allegations.
The claims against García Luna’s involvement with the Sinaloa cartel first came to light during a trial against Guzmán, who was sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years in 2019.
A former cartel member named Jesus “Rey” Zambada testified during Guzmán’s trial that he had delivered millions of dollars in payments to García Luna.
The case against the former minister was built on the testimony of nine cooperating witnesses, mostly convicted cartel members, including Zambada.
García Luna declined to testify at the trial, but his wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra, took the stand and attempted to downplay their finances and lifestyle.
