Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s Secretary of Public Security during the presidency of Felipe Calderón and tried in the United States on charges of drug trafficking and links to organized crime, was sentenced to 460 months in prison, a little more than 38 years.
He will be sentenced to five years of probation and fined $5 million. Garcia Luna was convicted “for his decade-long assistance to the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.
García Luna was found guilty of participating in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to obtain, import and distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine in the United States and making false statements to U.S. immigration officials following his arrest in December 2019.
In September, García Luna revealed that the New York District Attorney’s Office proposed that he accept a plea agreement that would involve spending six months in prison, obtaining financial benefits and becoming a witness to point the finger at people and institutions in Mexico, CNN reported. The former Secretary of Public Security said he had not accepted the deal because it would mean weakening “development, public peace and the institutional life of the country,” according to the handwritten communication shared by his lawyer with CNN.
On Tuesday, the day before the sentencing, García Luna made public a handwritten letter addressed to Judge Brian Cogan in which he recounts that while in the prison where he has spent the last 58 months of his captivity, he has participated in drug awareness training programs, as well as in a Prison Education program at Columbia University.
In addition, the former Secretary of Public Security emphasizes that when he was a public official he had knowledge of reserved and privileged information that included the collaboration of top-level US authorities.
