Maya Averbuch
Wed, February 22, 2023
(Bloomberg) -- Mexico’s former security czar convicted this week of helping cartel members distribute illegal drugs to the US should testify against the leaders he served under, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said.
Genaro Garcia Luna, who on Tuesday was found guilty of conspiracy counts for distributing cocaine and engaging in a criminal enterprise by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, could provide evidence against Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon, Mexico’s presidents from 2000 to 2012, Lopez Obrador said.
“If he can give information that will help combat narco-trafficking and about the criminal association between authorities and criminals, that would be very good, regardless of whether they reduce his years in prison,” AMLO, as the president is known, told reporters during his morning press conference Wednesday.
Mexico’s president hailed the trial’s outcome as a step toward rooting out corruption in his country, while also saying he would not bring a criminal case against Fox and Calderon at the moment, or seek the extradition of Garcia Luna while his sentencing is pending.
The case has shaken Mexico’s political class as Garcia Luna, who led Calderon’s bloody war against the cartels earlier this century, is the highest ranking Mexican official to be convicted for narco association in the US. AMLO has regularly mentioned the trial at his daily conferences as an example of the corruption that flourished under previous governments.
Calderon said in a statement late Tuesday that the case is being used to attack him politically and defended his decision to fight criminal groups during his years as president.
“This resolution does not demean the courageous fight of thousands of police officers, soldiers, sailors, prosecutors, judges, and good public servants who defended Mexican families from crime,” wrote Calderon in the letter, denying having ever negotiated with criminals.
Fox, for his part, criticized AMLO on Twitter Wednesday for his own security strategy and the homicide rate during his years in government, saying that he was “embracing the criminals and abandoning the victims.”
The four-week trial included the testimony of former cartel members and cooperating witnesses who said that Garcia Luna placed Sinaloa Cartel operatives on Mexican police rolls and aided their drug shipments. One former Mexican federal police officer testified that Garcia Luna was paid as much as $1.5 million a month even before his promotion to security chief.
It also featured the testimony of Edgar Veytia, former Attorney General for Nayarit State, who was sentenced to a 20-year prison term after pleading guilty to participating in a heroin, cocaine and marijuana manufacturing and distribution scheme. He testified that he was given instructions by security officials “not to intervene” in fighting between Sinaloa cartel factions.
An earlier attempt by US authorities to hold to account former Defense Minister Salvador Cienfuegos failed when he was arrested in the US in 2020 on charges of taking bribes to protect cartel members, then exonerated in Mexico after his extradition.
--With assistance from Patricia Hurtado.
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