Lima: US authorizes extradition to Peru of ex-president Toledo
Tue, February 21, 2023
The United States has authorized the extradition of former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006, to face charges of corruption in his home country, Peru's prosecutor's office said Tuesday.
"We have been informed that the US State Department authorized the extradition of Alejandro Toledo Manrique for the crimes of collusion and money laundering," the prosecutor's office said on Twitter.
Formally known as the Public Ministry, it said it was coordinating with "national and foreign" authorities for "the upcoming execution of his extradition."
"There is no fixed term, but fine-tuning the work between the two countries, we hope it will not take more than eight weeks," Alfredo Rebaza, a senior prosecutor at the extraditions office of the Peruvian Public Ministry, told local RPP radio.
A resident of the United States, Toledo was arrested in July 2019 on charges of corruption in Peru and has since been under US house arrest.
Lima accuses him of having received tens of millions of dollars from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for public works contracts.
Toledo, 76, studied at Stanford University and has resided in the United States since the end of his presidency, with brief breaks in 2011 and 2016 when he ran for a second term, but was defeated on both occasions.
Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 20 years and six months. They also sought the extradition of his wife, 69-year-old anthropologist Eliane Karp, who is cited in one of the corruption cases.
Toledo has admitted that Odebrecht paid at least $34 million and that he received part of that money, but claims he is innocent of the charges and says that a late businessman, Josef Maiman, was in charge of the business dealings, according to Peruvian media.
- Sprawling scandal -
Odebrecht is at the heart of a sprawling scandal in which the construction giant paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes throughout the continent to secure huge public works contracts.
According to the US Department of Justice, Odebrecht paid a total of $788 million in a dozen different Latin American countries over more than a decade.
The company has admitted to paying $29 million in bribes in Peru between 2005 and 2014.
As of late Tuesday, US officials had yet to publicly announce an authorization of Toledo's extradition.
The former president is one in a long list of former Peruvian presidents either facing legal proceedings or already convicted on corruption charges.
They include Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), Martin Vizcarra (2018-2020) and most recently Pedro Castillo (2021-2022).
A sixth, Alan Garcia, committed suicide in 2019 before being arrested for suspected corruption.
Since Castillo was impeached and arrested last December after trying to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, the country has been convulsed by deadly protests.
Protesters have been demanding that his successor and former vice president, Dina Boluarte, step down and new elections be held.
Tue, February 21, 2023
The United States has authorized the extradition of former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, who served from 2001 to 2006, to face charges of corruption in his home country, Peru's prosecutor's office said Tuesday.
"We have been informed that the US State Department authorized the extradition of Alejandro Toledo Manrique for the crimes of collusion and money laundering," the prosecutor's office said on Twitter.
Formally known as the Public Ministry, it said it was coordinating with "national and foreign" authorities for "the upcoming execution of his extradition."
"There is no fixed term, but fine-tuning the work between the two countries, we hope it will not take more than eight weeks," Alfredo Rebaza, a senior prosecutor at the extraditions office of the Peruvian Public Ministry, told local RPP radio.
A resident of the United States, Toledo was arrested in July 2019 on charges of corruption in Peru and has since been under US house arrest.
Lima accuses him of having received tens of millions of dollars from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for public works contracts.
Toledo, 76, studied at Stanford University and has resided in the United States since the end of his presidency, with brief breaks in 2011 and 2016 when he ran for a second term, but was defeated on both occasions.
Prosecutors are seeking a prison sentence of 20 years and six months. They also sought the extradition of his wife, 69-year-old anthropologist Eliane Karp, who is cited in one of the corruption cases.
Toledo has admitted that Odebrecht paid at least $34 million and that he received part of that money, but claims he is innocent of the charges and says that a late businessman, Josef Maiman, was in charge of the business dealings, according to Peruvian media.
- Sprawling scandal -
Odebrecht is at the heart of a sprawling scandal in which the construction giant paid hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes throughout the continent to secure huge public works contracts.
According to the US Department of Justice, Odebrecht paid a total of $788 million in a dozen different Latin American countries over more than a decade.
The company has admitted to paying $29 million in bribes in Peru between 2005 and 2014.
As of late Tuesday, US officials had yet to publicly announce an authorization of Toledo's extradition.
The former president is one in a long list of former Peruvian presidents either facing legal proceedings or already convicted on corruption charges.
They include Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), Martin Vizcarra (2018-2020) and most recently Pedro Castillo (2021-2022).
A sixth, Alan Garcia, committed suicide in 2019 before being arrested for suspected corruption.
Since Castillo was impeached and arrested last December after trying to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, the country has been convulsed by deadly protests.
Protesters have been demanding that his successor and former vice president, Dina Boluarte, step down and new elections be held.
Former Mexican minister convicted in US of drug trafficking
01:35 Former Mexican security secretary Genaro Garcia Luna sits in Brooklyn federal court on drug trafficking charges during jury selection in New York, US, January 17, 2023. © Jane Rosenberg, Reuters
Text by: NEWS WIRES|
A former Mexican presidential cabinet member was convicted in the US on Tuesday of taking massive bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was tasked with combating.
Under tight security, an anonymous New York federal court jury deliberated for three days before reaching a verdict in the drug trafficking case against ex-Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna.
He is the highest-ranking current or former Mexican official ever to be tried in the United States.
“García Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” Brooklyn-based US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
García Luna, who denied the allegations, headed Mexico’s federal police and was later the country's top public safety official from 2006 to 2012. His lawyers said the charges were based on lies from criminals who wanted to punish his drug-fighting efforts and to get sentencing breaks for themselves by helping prosecutors.
He showed no apparent reaction on hearing the verdict. His lawyer, César de Castro, said that the defense planned to appeal and that the case lacked “credible and reliable evidence.”
"The government was forced to settle for a case built on the backs of some of the most notorious and ruthless criminals to have testified in this courthouse,” de Castro said outside court.
García Luna, 54, was convicted on charges that include engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces at least 20 years and as much as life in prison at his sentencing, set for June 27.
The case had political ramifications on both sides of the border.
Current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed throughout the trial against ex-President Felipe Calderón’s administration for, at a minimum, putting García Luna in charge of Mexico’s security. López Obrador spokesperson Jesús Ramírez tweeted after the verdict that “justice has come” to a Calderón ally and that “the crimes committed against our people will never be forgotten.”
García Luna's work also introduced him to high-level American politicians and other officials, who considered him a key cartel-fighting partner as Washington embarked on a $1.6 billion push to beef up Mexican law enforcement and stem the flow of drugs.
The Americans weren’t accused of wrongdoing, and although suspicions long swirled around García Luna, the trial didn’t delve into the extent of US officials’ knowledge about them before his 2019 arrest.
López Obrador has, however, pointedly suggesting that Washington investigate its own law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked with García Luna during Calderón’s administration.
A roster of ex-smugglers and former Mexican officials testified that García Luna took millions of dollars in cartel cash, met with major traffickers in settings ranging from a country house to a car wash and kept law enforcement at bay.
He was “the best investment they had,” said Serigo "El Grande" Villareal Barragan, a former federal police officer who worked for cartels on the side and later as his main job.
He and other witnesses said that on García Luna’s watch, police tipped off traffickers about upcoming raids, ensured that cocain could pass freely through the country, colluded with cartels to raid rivals, and did other favors. One ex-smuggler said García Luna shared a document that reflected US law enforcement's information about a huge cocaine shipment that was seized in Mexico around 2007.
One ex-smuggler, Óscar “El Lobo” Nava Valencia, said he personally heard García Luna and a then-top police official say they would “stand with us” during a meeting with notorious Sinaloa cocaine cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s associates amid a cartel civil war. That sit-down alone cost the drug gang $3 million, Nava Valencia said.
García Luna didn’t testify at the trial, although his wife took the stand in an apparent effort to portray their assets in Mexico as legitimately acquired and upper-middle-class, but not lavish. The couple moved to Miami in 2012, when the Mexican administration changed and he became a consultant on security issues.
The trial was peppered with glimpses of such narco-extravagances as a private zoo with a lion, a hippo, white tigers and more. Jurors heard about tons of cocaine moving through Latin America in shipping containers, go-fast boats, private jets, planes, trains and even submarines.
And there were horrific reminders of the extraordinary violence those drugs fueled.
Witnesses described cartel killings and kidnappings, allegedly including an abduction of García Luna himself. There was testimony about police officers being slaughtered and drug-world rivals being dismembered, skinned and dangled from bridges as cartel factions fought each other while buying police protection.
Testimony also aired a secondhand claim that Calderón, the former president, sought to shield Guzmán against a major rival; Calderón called the allegation "absurd" and “an absolute lie.
García Luna was arrested after allegations of his alleged graft emerged at Guzman’s high-profile trial about four years ago in the same New York courthouse.
The former lawman also faces various Mexican arrest warrants and charges relating to government technology contracts, prison contracting and the bungled US "Fast and Furious" investigation into suspicions that guns were illegally making their way from the US to Mexican drug cartels. The Mexican government has also filed a civil suit against García Luna and his alleged associates and businesses in Florida, seeking to recover $700 million that Mexico claims he garnered through corruption.
Anticorruption activists gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate Tuesday's verdict.
“My country is a grave. It’s now a cemetery ... thanks to the corruption,” said Carmen Paes, who blamed drug lords in her native Mexico for the disappearance of a nephew decades ago.
(AP)
01:35 Former Mexican security secretary Genaro Garcia Luna sits in Brooklyn federal court on drug trafficking charges during jury selection in New York, US, January 17, 2023. © Jane Rosenberg, Reuters
Text by: NEWS WIRES|
A former Mexican presidential cabinet member was convicted in the US on Tuesday of taking massive bribes to protect the violent drug cartels he was tasked with combating.
Under tight security, an anonymous New York federal court jury deliberated for three days before reaching a verdict in the drug trafficking case against ex-Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna.
He is the highest-ranking current or former Mexican official ever to be tried in the United States.
“García Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels,” Brooklyn-based US Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement.
García Luna, who denied the allegations, headed Mexico’s federal police and was later the country's top public safety official from 2006 to 2012. His lawyers said the charges were based on lies from criminals who wanted to punish his drug-fighting efforts and to get sentencing breaks for themselves by helping prosecutors.
He showed no apparent reaction on hearing the verdict. His lawyer, César de Castro, said that the defense planned to appeal and that the case lacked “credible and reliable evidence.”
"The government was forced to settle for a case built on the backs of some of the most notorious and ruthless criminals to have testified in this courthouse,” de Castro said outside court.
García Luna, 54, was convicted on charges that include engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. He faces at least 20 years and as much as life in prison at his sentencing, set for June 27.
The case had political ramifications on both sides of the border.
Current Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has railed throughout the trial against ex-President Felipe Calderón’s administration for, at a minimum, putting García Luna in charge of Mexico’s security. López Obrador spokesperson Jesús Ramírez tweeted after the verdict that “justice has come” to a Calderón ally and that “the crimes committed against our people will never be forgotten.”
García Luna's work also introduced him to high-level American politicians and other officials, who considered him a key cartel-fighting partner as Washington embarked on a $1.6 billion push to beef up Mexican law enforcement and stem the flow of drugs.
The Americans weren’t accused of wrongdoing, and although suspicions long swirled around García Luna, the trial didn’t delve into the extent of US officials’ knowledge about them before his 2019 arrest.
López Obrador has, however, pointedly suggesting that Washington investigate its own law enforcement and intelligence officials who worked with García Luna during Calderón’s administration.
A roster of ex-smugglers and former Mexican officials testified that García Luna took millions of dollars in cartel cash, met with major traffickers in settings ranging from a country house to a car wash and kept law enforcement at bay.
He was “the best investment they had,” said Serigo "El Grande" Villareal Barragan, a former federal police officer who worked for cartels on the side and later as his main job.
He and other witnesses said that on García Luna’s watch, police tipped off traffickers about upcoming raids, ensured that cocain could pass freely through the country, colluded with cartels to raid rivals, and did other favors. One ex-smuggler said García Luna shared a document that reflected US law enforcement's information about a huge cocaine shipment that was seized in Mexico around 2007.
One ex-smuggler, Óscar “El Lobo” Nava Valencia, said he personally heard García Luna and a then-top police official say they would “stand with us” during a meeting with notorious Sinaloa cocaine cartel kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman’s associates amid a cartel civil war. That sit-down alone cost the drug gang $3 million, Nava Valencia said.
García Luna didn’t testify at the trial, although his wife took the stand in an apparent effort to portray their assets in Mexico as legitimately acquired and upper-middle-class, but not lavish. The couple moved to Miami in 2012, when the Mexican administration changed and he became a consultant on security issues.
The trial was peppered with glimpses of such narco-extravagances as a private zoo with a lion, a hippo, white tigers and more. Jurors heard about tons of cocaine moving through Latin America in shipping containers, go-fast boats, private jets, planes, trains and even submarines.
And there were horrific reminders of the extraordinary violence those drugs fueled.
Witnesses described cartel killings and kidnappings, allegedly including an abduction of García Luna himself. There was testimony about police officers being slaughtered and drug-world rivals being dismembered, skinned and dangled from bridges as cartel factions fought each other while buying police protection.
Testimony also aired a secondhand claim that Calderón, the former president, sought to shield Guzmán against a major rival; Calderón called the allegation "absurd" and “an absolute lie.
García Luna was arrested after allegations of his alleged graft emerged at Guzman’s high-profile trial about four years ago in the same New York courthouse.
The former lawman also faces various Mexican arrest warrants and charges relating to government technology contracts, prison contracting and the bungled US "Fast and Furious" investigation into suspicions that guns were illegally making their way from the US to Mexican drug cartels. The Mexican government has also filed a civil suit against García Luna and his alleged associates and businesses in Florida, seeking to recover $700 million that Mexico claims he garnered through corruption.
Anticorruption activists gathered outside the courthouse to celebrate Tuesday's verdict.
“My country is a grave. It’s now a cemetery ... thanks to the corruption,” said Carmen Paes, who blamed drug lords in her native Mexico for the disappearance of a nephew decades ago.
(AP)
Architect of Mexico's drug war convicted in US of trafficking
Issued on: 21/02/2023 -
New York (AFP) – A once-powerful Mexican government minister was convicted by a US jury Tuesday of aiding the very drug smuggling he was tasked with cracking down on.
Genaro Garcia Luna, public security minister under Felipe Calderon's presidency from 2006 to 2012, was found guilty on all five counts following a high-profile trial in New York.
The month-long proceedings shone a spotlight on the corruption of the highest ranking Mexican government figure ever to face trial in the United States.
It also opened a window on the vast resources of the Sinaloa Cartel under Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is now serving a life sentence in a US penitentiary.
Garcia Luna was convicted of receiving vast sums of money to allow the cartel to smuggle tons of cocaine.
He sat impassively in Brooklyn federal court as the guilty verdicts were read out, his wife and two children looking on.
He is due to be sentenced on June 27 and faces a mandatory minimum term of 20 years imprisonment and a maximum of life behind bars.
"Garcia Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels," said US prosecutor Breon Peace, welcoming the verdict.
A spokesperson for the current Mexican government, which has accused Garcia Luna of stealing more than $200 million of public funds and has demanded his extradition, said in a tweet that "justice has arrived."
Prosecutors argued that Garcia Luna, who held high-ranking security positions in Mexico from 2001 until 2012, was the cartel's "partner in crime."
That included during his time as the architect of then-president Calderon's crackdown on Mexico's drug gangs between 2006 and 2012.
But instead of stopping the smuggling, Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel to allow safe passage of narcotics shipments.
Calderon late Tuesday sought to distance himself from his convicted former minister, saying in a tweet that he "never negotiated or made pacts with criminals."
"I fought all those who threaten Mexico, including, of course, the so-called Cartel of the Pacific," Calderon said, using an alias for the Sinaloa Cartel.
FBI equivalent
US government attorneys said Garcia Luna tipped off traffickers about law enforcement operations, targeted rival cartel members for arrest and placed other corrupt officials in positions of power.
The five charges ranged from cocaine trafficking conspiracy to making false statements.
"We are extremely disappointed in today's verdict," said defense attorney Cesar de Castro, who now has 45 days to appeal.
Garcia Luna served as chief of the Mexican equivalent of the FBI from 2001 until 2006, when he was elevated to become secretary of public security, essentially running the federal police force and most counterdrug operations.
Nine of the 26 witnesses who testified against Garcia Luna are accused drug traffickers extradited from Mexico and collaborating with US prosecutors in exchange for possible leniency in their own trials.
They included former several high-level cartel bosses, including Jesus "Rey" Zambada, Sergio Villarreal Barragan and Oscar "Lobo" Valencia.
They claimed to have paid millions of dollars to Garcia Luna collectively, and through Arturo Beltran Leyva, who ran his own drug cartel and served as a go-between with Garcia Luna, known as a "supercop," in exchange for protection.
Garcia Luna, a mechanical engineer by trade, was detained in Texas in December 2019. He declined to testify on his own behalf.
The world's biggest narcotics organization at one time, the Sinaloa Cartel moved multi-ton loads of cocaine each month from producing countries in the Andean region up through Mexico and on to streets in Europe and North America.
© 2023 AFP
Issued on: 21/02/2023 -
New York (AFP) – A once-powerful Mexican government minister was convicted by a US jury Tuesday of aiding the very drug smuggling he was tasked with cracking down on.
Genaro Garcia Luna, public security minister under Felipe Calderon's presidency from 2006 to 2012, was found guilty on all five counts following a high-profile trial in New York.
The month-long proceedings shone a spotlight on the corruption of the highest ranking Mexican government figure ever to face trial in the United States.
It also opened a window on the vast resources of the Sinaloa Cartel under Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is now serving a life sentence in a US penitentiary.
Garcia Luna was convicted of receiving vast sums of money to allow the cartel to smuggle tons of cocaine.
He sat impassively in Brooklyn federal court as the guilty verdicts were read out, his wife and two children looking on.
He is due to be sentenced on June 27 and faces a mandatory minimum term of 20 years imprisonment and a maximum of life behind bars.
"Garcia Luna, who once stood at the pinnacle of law enforcement in Mexico, will now live the rest of his days having been revealed as a traitor to his country and to the honest members of law enforcement who risked their lives to dismantle drug cartels," said US prosecutor Breon Peace, welcoming the verdict.
A spokesperson for the current Mexican government, which has accused Garcia Luna of stealing more than $200 million of public funds and has demanded his extradition, said in a tweet that "justice has arrived."
Prosecutors argued that Garcia Luna, who held high-ranking security positions in Mexico from 2001 until 2012, was the cartel's "partner in crime."
That included during his time as the architect of then-president Calderon's crackdown on Mexico's drug gangs between 2006 and 2012.
But instead of stopping the smuggling, Garcia Luna took millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel to allow safe passage of narcotics shipments.
Calderon late Tuesday sought to distance himself from his convicted former minister, saying in a tweet that he "never negotiated or made pacts with criminals."
"I fought all those who threaten Mexico, including, of course, the so-called Cartel of the Pacific," Calderon said, using an alias for the Sinaloa Cartel.
FBI equivalent
US government attorneys said Garcia Luna tipped off traffickers about law enforcement operations, targeted rival cartel members for arrest and placed other corrupt officials in positions of power.
The five charges ranged from cocaine trafficking conspiracy to making false statements.
"We are extremely disappointed in today's verdict," said defense attorney Cesar de Castro, who now has 45 days to appeal.
Garcia Luna served as chief of the Mexican equivalent of the FBI from 2001 until 2006, when he was elevated to become secretary of public security, essentially running the federal police force and most counterdrug operations.
Nine of the 26 witnesses who testified against Garcia Luna are accused drug traffickers extradited from Mexico and collaborating with US prosecutors in exchange for possible leniency in their own trials.
They included former several high-level cartel bosses, including Jesus "Rey" Zambada, Sergio Villarreal Barragan and Oscar "Lobo" Valencia.
They claimed to have paid millions of dollars to Garcia Luna collectively, and through Arturo Beltran Leyva, who ran his own drug cartel and served as a go-between with Garcia Luna, known as a "supercop," in exchange for protection.
Garcia Luna, a mechanical engineer by trade, was detained in Texas in December 2019. He declined to testify on his own behalf.
The world's biggest narcotics organization at one time, the Sinaloa Cartel moved multi-ton loads of cocaine each month from producing countries in the Andean region up through Mexico and on to streets in Europe and North America.
© 2023 AFP
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