Former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Arrested for Drug-Trafficking Conspiracy and Making Fals

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edny/pr/former-mexican-secretary-public-security-arrested-drug-trafficking-conspiracy-and

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
Eastern District of New York

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, December 10, 2019

Former Mexican Secretary of Public Security Arrested for Drug-Trafficking Conspiracy and Making False Statements

An indictment was unsealed today in federal court in Brooklyn charging Genaro Garcia Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012, with three counts of cocaine trafficking conspiracy and one count of making false statements. In exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes, the defendant allegedly permitted the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity in Mexico. Garcia Luna was arrested yesterday by federal agents in Dallas, Texas, and the government will seek his removal to the Eastern District of New York to face these charges.
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According to the indictment and other court filings by the government, from 2001 to 2012, while occupying high-ranking law enforcement positions in the Mexican government, Garcia Luna received millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for providing protection for its drug trafficking activities. From 2001 to 2005, Garcia Luna led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency, and from 2006 to 2012, he served as Mexico’s Secretary of Public Security, controlling Mexico’s Federal Police Force. In exchange for the payment of bribes, the Sinaloa Cartel obtained safe passage for its drug shipments, sensitive law enforcement information about investigations into the Cartel, and information about rival drug cartels, thereby facilitating the importation of multi‑ton quantities of cocaine and other drugs into the United States. On two occasions, the Cartel personally delivered bribe payments to Garcia Luna in briefcases containing between three and five million dollars. According to financial records obtained by the government, by the time Garcia Luna relocated to the United States in 2012, he had amassed a personal fortune of millions of dollars.

Garcia Luna continued to take steps in the United States to conceal his corrupt assistance to drug traffickers. Specifically, he allegedly submitted an application for naturalization in 2018, in which he lied about his past criminal acts on behalf of the Sinaloa artel.
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