New York-
The trial against Genaro García Luna continues this Tuesday in a federal court in New York, with the second part of the testimony Sergio
El Grande
Villarreal Barragán, former boss of the Sinaloa cartel and key witness for the Prosecutor's Office in his accusation against the former secretary Mexican Public Security of receiving bribes from drug traffickers, whom he was supposedly fighting, in exchange for providing them with protection and confidential information.
The millions of dollars allegedly received from the drug trafficker, reported
El Grande
, arrived (first directly into the hands of García Luna and then through intermediaries, when he took over as secretary in 2006), in
"black suitcases full of money"
.
“The cartel had expanded to a large part of the republic.
There was more profit for everyone," the witness said when asked by prosecutor Erin Reid.
In exchange for these payments, key information came from the federal police commanded by García Luna to avoid the authorities and eliminate their enemies, according to the witness.
Such was the case, he assured, in the operation at the wedding party of Edgar
La Barbie
Valdez Villarreal, a lieutenant of the cartel, in Acapulco.
"The party was held, but no one came," he explained, "they found no one."
El Grande,
a convicted drug trafficker and protected witness of the US Government, thus finished explaining to the jury, with detailed anecdotes, the complex relationship of which García Luna is accused with the cartel, which would include from "friendly" conversations to a kidnapping.
'El Grande' testifies in federal court.
jane rosenberg
After the interrogation by the Prosecutor's Office, it will be the turn of García Luna's defense, who will predictably try to attack the credibility of the witness and reinforce his story that the trial is a "revenge" of the drug trafficker against the former official, without concrete evidence, and with the support of the United States.
García Luna faces five charges (three for cocaine trafficking, one for organized crime and another for false statements), and is the highest-ranking official to be brought before a US court.
If convicted, he faces a life sentence in prison.
But there are more reasons why the process against him arouses interest: his case covers Mexican politics, the extensive and violent drug trafficking, the connection between both spheres, and the relationship between the US and Mexico in the fight against the drugs.
García Luna directed the Federal Investigation Agency between 2001 and 2005, and then he was Secretary of Public Security in the Government of Felipe Calderón from 2006 to 2012, and as such he was seen as in charge of the bloody war against the cartels.
"He was in charge of caring for the Mexican people, that was the first job, the second was a dirty job," prosecutor Philip Nathan Pilmar said Monday.
The defense, for its part, denied that they have concrete evidence, and has described the trial as a drug "revenge" against the former secretary, with the support of the US Government.
Black suitcases full of money
“It was the best investment of the Sinaloa Cartel,” Sergio
El Grande
Villarreal Barragán, a former drug lord from the Beltrán Leyva organization, said on his first day of testimony, assuring that García Luna received “millions of dollars” from collections from various drug lords.
This Tuesday, he expanded this story with more details before the 18-member jury.
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Before he was secretary of Public Security, the payments were made by the then leader of the criminal organization, Arturo Beltrán Leyva.
Then, starting in 2006, they were made through Luis Cárdenas Palomino, appointed in 2008 Intelligence Coordinator for Crime Prevention, of the Federal Police, and García Luna's
right-hand man
(he was detained since 2021 in Mexico accused of torture). .
“The amount and the form of payment changed,” Villareal said.
Presumably, García Luna and Arturo Beltrán continued to communicate by radio, after the official went to the cabinet of Felipe Calderón, "but very sporadically," he said.
A wedding party without boyfriends
Villarreal Barragán has testified about joint operations between the police and the Sinaloa cartel in the city of Monterrey against a rival cartel;
how police officers allowed him to establish routes for the transfer of shipments of between 800 and 1,200 kilograms (1,764 and 2,646 pounds) of cocaine several times a week through the state of Chiapas;
and how the police informed the cartel in advance of future operations so that the traffickers could get rid of everything.
El Grande
continued with these stories on Tuesday, some anecdotal such as when
they changed fake drugs for real ones
to be able to take a shipment that had been confiscated, there were some examples of how the cartel received key information from the police commanded by García Luna.
He mentioned that on one occasion, Cárdenas Palomino (García Luna's right-hand man) warned them that the police were planning to raid the house where Arturo Beltrán Leyva's family lived in Cuernavaca.
“We took everything out, they searched but they found nothing,” he said.
'El Grande' testifies during the trial.
jane rosenberg
He also recounted when the police raided the wedding party of Edgar
La Barbie
Valdez Villarreal, lieutenant of the Sinaloa cartel, in Acapulco.
“
The party was held, but no one came, not even him (
La Barbie
).
The government fell but they didn't find anyone," said El Grande, after which some present in the courtroom couldn't help but laugh.
And an express kidnapping
El Grande
also recounted that Beltrán Leyva ordered the kidnapping of García Luna at some point in 2008. Presumably, he sought to pressure him to continue helping them, after the cartel received several beatings from the police.
"
They picked him up on a highway in the state of Morelos towards Cocoyoc
," said
El Grande
in the courtroom.
He assured that he knew about the kidnapping because Alberto Pineda Villa
El Borrado
, one of the bosses of the Beltrán Leyva cartel, told him so.
According to the testimony of
El Grande
, after the breakup of the Sinaloa Cartel, Arturo Beltrán Leyva allegedly spoke with García Luna to ask him which side he was on.
The bloody war between the cartel organizations began between 2006 and 2007, when they divided into factions (
El Chapo
Guzmán,
El Mayo
Zambada, Azul Esparragoza and Ignacio
Nacho
Coronel Villarreal fought for control against the Beltrán Leyva brothers, the Zetas and Vicente Carrillo ).
The ex-narco capo assures that García Luna replied that "that was not his problem", that he was neutral, and that was when Arturo Beltrán Leyva allegedly began to pay him the entire "monthly allowance" of drug bribes.
He also recounted a supposed truce between cartels, in which they "divided the country."
More drug lords summoned
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 .
The Prosecutor's Office pointed out in its opening arguments that it would show that the former official received millions in bribes from the drug trafficker and "betrayed the oath of his country."
The case against him brings together a million pages of documents and graphic material, as well as recordings of wiretapped communications.
In the Brooklyn court, a parade of government witnesses and drug lords is also expected, never seen there since the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Joaquín
El Chapo
Guzmán, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2019.
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The defense has argued that the witnesses are the ones who fell for the work of the former official in his fight against drug trafficking.
"What better revenge than to bury the man who led the war against the cartels," César de Castro, García Luna's lawyer, said Monday.
"Don't let the cartels manipulate you," he told the jury.
Investigators claim that García Luna continued to live off his ill-gotten gains even after moving to Florida in the US and until he was arrested in 2019, although
his defense alleges that he was a legitimate businessman
.
The former secretary has pleaded not guilty to charges of drug trafficking and criminal enterprise.
Ronny Rojas reports from court in New York.