(ABC News) Genaro Garcia Luna, Secretary of Public Security in Mexico from 2006 to 2012, was found guilty Tuesday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise that included six drug-related violations.
The verdict followed a four-week trial and comes with a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment.
“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 U.S. Attorney Breon Peace.
“It is unconscionable that the defendant betrayed his duty as Secretary of Public Security by greedily accepting millions of dollars in bribe money that was stained by the blood of Cartel wars and drug-related battles in the streets of the United States and Mexico, in exchange for protecting those murderers and traffickers he was solemnly sworn to investigate.”
Mexico’s Secretary of Public Safety Genaro Garcia Luna attends a news conference on the sidelines of an American Police Community meeting in Mexico City, Oct. 8, 2010.
Marco Ugarte/AP, FILE
Garcia Luna was the equivalent of the FBI Director in Mexico and, in that time, used his official positions to assist the violent Sinaloa drug cartel in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes, prosecutors said.
