The trial in the United States against the anti-drug czar García Luna threatens those around Felipe Calderón

The wait is over.

The highest profile trial against a former Mexican official in history is about to begin in the United States.

Three years after being arrested, Genaro García Luna will finally sit this Tuesday in the dock in the Eastern District Court of the State of New York, the same court where Joaquín

Guzmán was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019. It is right here where the Secretary of Public Security of the Government of Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) will have to answer for three charges of cocaine trafficking, one more for organized crime and another for false statements.

If found guilty, the former Mexican police chief will face a minimum of 10 years in jail or the higher penalty, spending the rest of his life behind bars.

The Prosecutor's Office accuses García Luna, one of the most controversial and feared politicians in recent years, of collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel for almost two decades.

His fate is in the hands of an anonymous jury and Brian Cogan, the same judge who sentenced El Chapo.

The case will be decided in a Brooklyn court, but it threatens to unleash a political storm to more than 3.

The Court for the Eastern District of New York, one of the most mediatic courts in the United States, has dozens of hearings scheduled for this Tuesday, including trials against gang members, multi-million dollar fraud and a bribery scandal at FIFA, the governing body of the international soccer.

"What judgment is it?

The one with the terrorist?” asks an employee of the court curiously, who gives the impression of having seen everything in recent years, while reviewing in his head the busy schedule of the judges.

"Oh, sure!

The policeman from Mexico, ”he says, relieved after remembering, smiling smugly.

"It is the most important case we have these days," he settles.

The name of Genaro García Luna does not say much in Brooklyn, but the trial against the former official has not gone unnoticed.

Some American media refer to him as

, the " important

" of Mexico, or as

Mexican.

Interest in the case skyrockets when his alleged link with El Chapo is included in the formula and how this process is shaping up to be a new edition, a second part, of the so-called trial of the century.

Two weeks ago, the paths of the former member of the Cabinet and the most famous Mexican cartel in the world crossed again, when Ovidio Guzmán, son of the capo, was captured in Sinaloa, after an operation and a storm of violence that resulted in at least least 29 people dead, according to authorities.

Despite the fact that the thermometer has dropped below zero several times in recent days, more and more Mexican and Latino reporters and television cameras are seen in the streets and around the courthouse.

Genaro Garcia Luna (center) during an earlier court hearing on February 27, 2020.JANE ROSENBERG (Reuters)

García Luna, a man whose meteoric rise cannot be explained without the outbreak of the drug war during his tenure, will not be seen wearing a prison uniform during the trial.

It was an express request made by his lawyers.

Judge Cogan authorized a wardrobe that included two navy blue suits, two white and two light blue shirts, four T-shirts, three ties, four pairs of socks and one pair of black shoes.

The defense is convinced that he will be able to prove the innocence of his client and that the Prosecutor's Office has no solid evidence against him.

In a legal system like the United States, which favors obtaining plea agreements in exchange for reduced sentences to speed up the resolution of cases,

From previous hearings, it is known that the Prosecutor's Office plans to take about 20 witnesses to the stand.

García Luna's lawyers have tried to have these testimonies discarded and in the conflict some possible names of those who could speak against García Luna have been aired, a mixture of former officials and drug traffickers who say they are willing to tell everything, most of them captured during the administration of the former Secretary of Security.

They want to talk about the bribes, the dark pacts, the farce of the self-sabotaging operatives against the bosses.

The list is not yet public and will be revealed as the trial progresses.

What is certain is that it will be a mountain of accusations and revelations that will fuel a permanent suspicion in Mexico: the level of involvement of the authorities with organized crime.

The president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has also targeted hundreds of thousands of dollars that García Luna managed to amass as a government contractor after he left public service.

The Prosecutor's Office has also assured that he is going to put the fortune made by the former official in the private sector under scrutiny.

Authorities claimed that the defendant helped a group of companies receive millions of dollars from the United States Government to install surveillance systems and technological equipment, and that those same companies later repaid him the favor with a luxurious mansion in Florida when he left the position in 2012. "Businessmen got him a multi-million dollar home and a yacht in Miami, as well as a lucrative contract," read a court document filed last week.

The defense has responded that the facet of his client as a businessman is irrelevant to the case.

The trial will, however, be an X-ray of his entire life.

Since the arrest of García Luna in December 2019, just five months after the conviction against El Chapo, López Obrador has made it clear that he does not intend to miss the opportunity for the accusations to splash out on Calderón, one of his main political nemeses. .

From the beginning, Calderón has defended that he never knew that his Secretary of Security had ties to the

and that, if he happened, he went behind his back.

But Calderón is not the only one potentially affected by the whole process and its collateral damage.

The Prosecutor's Office assures that García Luna collaborated with the Sinaloa Cartel since 2001, when he was head of the Federal Investigation Agency during the Government of Vicente Fox (2000-2006).

The accusations of corruption and revolving doors as a government contractor point, for their part, to the Administration of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018).

You can even talk about alleged crimes in the close circle of the current president.

During El Chapo's trial, some traffickers claimed they approached people from his team to offer them bribes.

Even so, López Obrador knows that he has the advantage in the political struggle.

"The García Luna trial is going to be interesting," the president said last week.

"He's going to be very good,

the trial was very good," he insisted.

And he anticipated that she was going to follow him up.

After the holiday in the United States this Monday, the selection of who will be the 12 members of the jury is expected to conclude on Tuesday and then the first hearing of the trial against García Luna will begin, with the initial arguments, except for a last-minute change. .

The highest-ranking Mexican official to be prosecuted seeks to defend his legacy.

is also at stake

.

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