The DEA knew about García Luna's alleged ties to the drug trafficker for more than 10 years, a federal agent recounts in court

NY.

Miguel Madrigal, an official of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), assured this Thursday that for more than 10 years the federal agency had information that the former Mexican Secretary of Public Safety Genaro García Luna had relations with drug trafficking.

Madrigal, who was stationed in Mexico and is now a special agent in Texas, said that this news reached them from ex-capo Sergio Villareal Barragán, nicknamed

, who contacted the DEA after being arrested in 2010 to tell them that he had compromising information about García Luna. .

Last week, Villareal, a former narco from the Beltrán Leyva organization, assured in court that García Luna "was the best investment of the Sinaloa Cartel" and that the official received "millions of dollars" from collections from various drug leaders.

García Luna has denied any link with the drug cartels, which he had the task of fighting when he was secretary of the Government of Felipe Calderón.

His defense points out that the accusations are based on accounts of ex-criminals who carry out "revenge" against the former official, and that there is no evidence of the alleged deliveries of money and favors conceived in exchange.

["Black suitcases full of money" belonging to the drug trafficker arrived at García Luna when he was secretary, a witness from the Prosecutor's Office assures]

Madrigal, a witness for the Prosecutor's Office, is the first US agent to mention a possible link between García Luna and the Sinaloa cartel during the trial against the former Mexican official in a federal court in Brooklyn (New York).

The agent, who was stationed in Mexico between 2008 and 2015, also pointed out that on one occasion - he did not specify the year - the DEA investigated a meeting held by high-ranking Mexican government officials with drug lords at the defunct Champs Elysées restaurant, in the downtown Mexico City, which was located on Paseo de la Reforma and

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He said that the DEA went to the restaurant to check if there were cameras that had recorded the meeting, but the place did not have one. 

He also recounted how the DEA saw a lack of trust and coordination between the different security entities of the Mexican Government, which investigated and handled drug trafficking cases separately due to the possibility that the information might be exposed.

He assured that at some point he saw a video in which the white Cherokee truck owned by Édgar Enrique Bayardo del Villar, then an inspector attached to the Federal Preventive Police of Mexico, appeared parked in front of the house of drug lord Jesús 

 Zambada, although he did not specified the date.

Bayardo was shot to death in a cafeteria in the Mexican capital in November 2015.