Mexico prepares a new arrest warrant against Genaro García Luna, while the trial continues in New York

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Mexico announced this Sunday that a new arrest request is being processed against the former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna, who since last week has been on trial in the United States on accusations of receiving million-dollar bribes to protect the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Attorney General of the Republic reported in a statement that there is a request for the arrest of "Genaro 'G'" that "is being processed," but did not provide details.

A federal agent confirmed to The Associated Press that the action is against García Luna, who was secretary of Public Security from 2006 to 2012 during the government of then-president Felipe Calderón.

If the measure is carried out, it could be added to two other arrest warrants that he has in Mexico for the illegal entry of weapons and prison tenders.

The Prosecutor's Office ruled out that the actions that are being followed in Mexico are related to the process that is taking place in the United States, where García Luna has been detained since 2019, and said that the trial "does not affect, in any way, Mexican procedures." .

["He betrayed the oath to his country": the prosecution details how Genaro García Luna "helped" the Mexican drug traffickers]

File photo of the former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico, Genaro García Luna, at a press conference on October 8, 2010, in Mexico City. Marco Ugarte / AP

The Mexican authorities continue to negotiate with the United States the extradition of the former Secretary of Security, the Prosecutor's Office specified.

One of the processes that García Luna has in Mexico is related to the failed US federal operation known as 'Fast and Furious', which came to light after the death of border agent Brian Terry at the end of 2010.

The "Fast and Furious" operation took place between 2009 and 2011 when agents from the United States Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) allowed the departure of 2,500 illegal weapons to Mexico to track the activities of the drug cartels through weapons.

The agency lost track of most of the weapons, including two that were found at the scene where Terry was killed in southern Arizona.

[For these reasons the trial against Genaro García Luna generates so many expectations in the US and Mexico]

According to the Prosecutor's Office, the weapons that the Mexican authorities allowed to enter illegally at that time "have caused a large number of deaths and irreparable damage to justice."

García Luna is also in process for contracts that the Calderón government made with private companies to build and provide services to federal prisons, which have been questioned by the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and other authorities who maintain that the contracts generated patrimonial damage to the State.

The Mexican prosecutor's office added that García Luna, who was also director of the now-defunct Federal Investigation Agency from 2000 to 2006, faces two other investigations.

Local media reported that a judge is evaluating a process against the former official for illicit enrichment.

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The Secretary of Foreign Relations of Mexico, Marcelo Ebrard, revealed last week the existence of a lawsuit in a United States court against 39 companies and trusts belonging to or in which García Luna or his relatives participated.

The Mexican Financial Intelligence Unit, which is in charge of investigating money laundering, filed the lawsuit on September 21, 2021 in Miami.

The agency calculates that the approximate amount to be claimed for public contracts linked to these companies was about 700 million dollars.

During the first week of the US trial, Sergio Villarreal Barragán, a former federal police officer who joined the Sinaloa Cartel, testified about joint cartel-police operations against rival criminal groups;

of how García Luna warned of raids, or that one day he took 14 million dollars in cardboard boxes from a warehouse full of cocaine that the police had seized from the Gulf Cartel and delivered to the Sinaloa group.