US federal prosecutors mentioned the previous official was the Sinaloa cartel’s “most respected asset”
Mexico’s former head of public safety, Genaro García Luna, has been accused of taking bribes from a serious cartel and permitting the felony group to smuggle huge portions of narcotics into the USA. Now going through expenses in a US federal court docket, the allegations towards Luna had been first raised in the course of the trial of infamous drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.
The ex-official’s trial received underway on Monday in a Brooklyn courtroom, the place Luna was accused of taking part in a key function within the Sinaloa cartel’s smuggling operations whereas working as safety chief between 2006 and 2012.
“The proof will present that the defendant, the one that was presupposed to be answerable for combating the Sinaloa cartel, was truly its most respected asset,” the prosecution mentioned in its opening assertion, including “The defendant took thousands and thousands of {dollars} of bribes once more, many times,” and “betrayed his nation and ours.”
A protection legal professional for Luna, Cesar de Castro, attacked the federal government’s case in his personal opening assertion, arguing there may be “no cash, no images, no video, no texts, no emails, no recordings, no paperwork – no credible, plausible proof that Genaro García Luna helped the cartel.”
“Don’t let the cartels play you,” he advised the jury, including that cartel members set to testify within the case had been solely doing so to cut back their very own sentences and take revenge towards a Mexican official previously concerned in combating felony teams.
Luna was arrested in late 2019 after a witness within the trial of Sinaloa boss ‘El Chapo’ revealed that the official had accepted thousands and thousands of {dollars} to look the opposite manner because the cartel trafficked medication by Mexico. In accordance with ProPublica, US investigators uncovered proof of his function in drug smuggling years earlier, together with whereas Luna was nonetheless in workplace in 2012, however federal prosecutors repeatedly denied requests to cost him. Whereas he was in the end indicted on 5 counts linked to trafficking and corruption – every carrying sentences starting from 10 years to life in jail – the explanation for the years-long delay stays unclear.
The trial kicked off weeks after Mexican authorities arrested Ovidio ‘El Raton’ Guzman-Lopez, the son of El Chapo, prompting violent clashes between cartel members and police that left no less than 30 individuals useless. Although a Mexico Metropolis choose lately barred the person’s extradition to the US, American authorities are nonetheless working to have him launched into their custody. The elder Guzman was extradited to the US in 2017 and later convicted on 10 felony courts, for which he obtained a life sentence.
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