Genaro García Luna, former Mexican Secretary of Public Security, will face dozens of witnesses in his trial in New York for drug trafficking conspiracy in support of the Sinaloa cartel, including high-profile drug lords, such as old allies of Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán, and former Mexican officials, indicate judicial documents released this Friday.
The names of some of the witnesses called were released by order of the judge in charge of the case, Brian Cogan, the same one who tried Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán (between 2018-2019), which establishes some guidelines and limitations to exclude several elements and issues of the trial, which begins this Monday and is estimated to last eight weeks.
Among the excluded
evidence are the praise
of the defendant by senior US officials who intended to use the defense, but also samples of
the wealth accumulated
by the former secretary presented by the prosecution, according to a judicial motion released on Monday.
Genaro García Luna, in a file photo from 2010, when he was Secretary of Public Security of Mexico.
Marco Ugarte/AP
The selection process for
the 18 members of the jury,
carried out by prosecutors and defense attorneys under the supervision of a magistrate judge, was also completed.
Identities are protected - including their names, places of work and other personal information - and their transfer to court will be under the protection of federal marshals.
The jury faces a million pages of documents and graphic material, as well as recordings of wiretapped communications, and some 70 people called to testify.
Some of the names of the
drug lords summoned sound
familiar since they were present at the trial against
El Chapo
Guzmán, such as Jesús
El Rey
Zambada García (former operator of the Sinaloa cartel) and Édgar
El Diablo
Veytia, former prosecutor of the Mexican state of Nayarit.
[From Mexican drug czar to being arrested for ties to the narco: who is Genaro García Luna]
The process arouses expectations and concerns: as former secretary of the Mexican government of Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, he was one of the architects of the policy of bloody combat against cartels.
The trial may expose insiders in Mexican politics and drug networks, splashing other officials.
If convicted, García Luna,
the highest-ranking Mexican public official
ever to be tried in a US court, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a minimum of 20 years behind bars.
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The trial will determine whether García Luna is guilty of participating in a cocaine trafficking conspiracy, including accepting multimillion-dollar bribes from the Sinaloa cartel between 2001 and 2012 while holding public office – first director of the Federal Investigation Agency and later the Secretary of Security public.
He also faces a fifth charge for making false statements to US authorities.
García Luna, who lived in Florida for years, was arrested in 2019, and has been behind bars since then awaiting his trial.
Large drug lords and former officials
The list of possible summoned to testify before García Luna is extensive, but some names from the front line of the Mexican cartels have been known, although until now the identities of all the officials have not been revealed.
Jesús
El Rey
Zambada García
, former operator of the Sinaloa cartel and younger brother of Ismael
El Mayo
Zambada, who during the trial against Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán assured that he gave 8 million dollars in bribes to García Luna in exchange for protection for the organization criminal.
Sergio
El Grande
Villarreal Barragan
;
former collaborator of the United States Government;
and
Édgar Veytia
, former prosecutor of the Mexican state of Nayarit, known as
El Diablo
, sentenced in the United States in 2019 to 20 years in prison for collaborating with drug trafficking and receiving bribes from the H2 cartel, Juan Francisco Partón Sánchez.
One of the Cifuentes Villa
brothers
(first name not mentioned in order);
the group of Colombian drug traffickers close to
El Chapo
Guzmán, the Sinaloa cartel;
and one of the Arriola Márquez
brothers
.
Genaro García Luna is the highest-ranking Mexican official to have been tried in the US.
Jan 19, 202300:26
Excluded: praise and displays of wealth
Among other things, the judge told the defense that he will not be able to include in the process the presentation of praise or recommendations to the accused by senior US officials when García Luna was in the Mexican government.
It will allow the introduction of up to five photographs of the defendant with these senior US officials as part of the opening and closing arguments of the trial.
“It is customary for the defendant to present evidence relating to his background,” the order explains.
Although he also denied elements to the prosecution: he will not be able to show evidence about the defendant's wealth accumulated after 2012, the year in which he left the government and established his security consulting company in Miami.
The investigators' goal was to show that the defendant's expensive lifestyle was financed by the Sinaloa cartel.
"The evidence of his post-2012 wealth is irrelevant," the judge ruled.