Genaro García Luna, during an interview in Mexico in 2009.Dario Lopez-Mills / AP
Mexican justice seeks to try Genaro García Luna, head of the fight against drug trafficking during the mandate of former President Felipe Calderón, for a crime of illicit enrichment.
A judge in the State of Mexico issued an arrest warrant last Thursday against the former secretary of Public Security, who has been detained in the United States for a year for alleged links with the Sinaloa cartel.
García Luna, who was at the forefront of the anti-drug strategy between 2006 and 2012, is now being claimed by the justice of his country for not having justified the origin of 27 million pesos (more than 1.3 million dollars) invested in different properties .
In order to put the politician on the bench and judge him for those opaque funds, Mexico must first request his extradition from the United States government.
Sources from the Attorney General's Office explain to EL PAÍS that the request has not yet been processed, since this procedure implies the formal intervention of the Ministry of Foreign Relations.
This is not, however, the only file by which García Luna is being investigated.
Justice is also examining the ramifications of the case that has him under arrest in New York after being arrested in December of last year in Dallas (Texas).
Last October the former drug czar appeared before the same District Court that prosecuted Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán.
At the hearing, which suffered several interruptions, he pleaded not guilty to the five charges against him, related to the possession, distribution and importation of cocaine into the United States.
The summary currently adds up to almost 190,000 pages of evidence that according to the accusation demonstrate his ties to drug trafficking and the Sinaloa cartel.
The repercussions of this process are explosive for Mexico.
They not only question the management of Felipe Calderón's security policy, but also expose once again the problem of the balance between the investigations undertaken by the two countries.
The Mexican Prosecutor's Office had already expanded the case against the former Secretary of Security and issued an arrest warrant for one of his collaborators, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, for the torture of four people.
The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has always praised the cooperation of the authorities.
However, the new action of the Public Ministry for a patrimonial investigation of the former Secretary of Security deepens the demands of Mexico.
The decision also comes ten days after General Salvador Cienfuegos, Minister of Defense during Enrique Peña Nieto's government, returned from the United States after spending a month in detention in California and after the justice of that country withdrew the drug trafficking and money laundering charges made at first.
The Prosecutor's Office received from the Department of Justice the folder with the evidence that led to his arrest and informed the former Army chief that he is being investigated.
In that case, Cienfuegos returned to Mexico after an intense diplomatic negotiation, which also took place while presidential elections were being held in the neighboring country.
The Chancellor himself, Marcelo Ebrard, argued that if there is a suspicion that the acts attributed to Cienfuegos were committed in Mexico, it should be investigated and tried by the Mexican justice system.
At the same time, the US Attorney's Office attributed its decision to the fact that "foreign policy considerations exceed the Government's interest in pursuing the process against the accused."
In the absence of knowing the details of the extradition request, similar legal - and diplomatic - arguments can be applied to García Luna, although in this case they are different accusations.
When the former official was arrested in Texas, López Obrador said in conversation with journalists that no "trial" could be "brought forward" against him.
"We are not going to use the government to persecute anyone, we have never done it, it is a matter of principle, we are not going to fabricate a crime against anyone," he said.
On subsequent occasions, in connection with the same trial, he highlighted "the close collaboration of the Department of Justice and other agencies with the Attorney General's Office."
The next hearing against García Luna in the United States is scheduled for December 7.