The terror of Mexico is judged in the US as if it were not with them

In recent weeks we have once again met or learned more about a series of gloomy Mexican characters:

, whose name is Sergio Villarreal and is nicknamed that way because he is over two meters tall;

he was a policeman until he became a corrupt policeman… and then a capo of the Beltrán Leyva Cartel when these brothers were allies of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Or

, whose name is Tirso Martínez and is nicknamed that way because he owned four professional soccer teams in Mexico… when he was in charge of the Sinaloa Cartel to traffic drugs by train between Mexico and the United States.

We know more about Israel Ávila, who presented himself as a real estate agent until he became a lieutenant, yes, of the Sinaloa Cartel.

Or we heard from

, as Harold Poveda is nicknamed, who in his “fantasy mansion” had lions, a chimpanzee or a “spectacular” Persian cat and white “like cocaine”.

We have listened to all of them and we know more because Genaro García Luna is testifying against the man who was the head of Mexico's security during the term of Felipe Calderón, the president who launched what became known as the war against drug trafficking.

And it all happens in a courthouse in Brooklyn, New York.

Once again, as happened with Joaquín

, it is in the United States where the grotesque and Mexican terror is radiographed.

🔴 So far, 17 witnesses have testified in the trial against García Luna.

What do they ask?

How are the interrogations lived?

What is the defense strategy to sink them?

Why are their testimonies key in the case?

I tell you here 👇 https://t.co/HRkM7iBF82

— Elias Camhaji (@eliascamhaji) February 4, 2023

There is not a day that, south of the Río Bravo, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador does not dedicate a space to it in his Mañanera, the nearly three-hour press conference that he gives daily starting at seven in the morning, to Garcia Luna;

Nor is it a time when a tweet, a thread, a fight on social networks does not appear about the consequences that everything that is said must have, not only in García Luna but in his former boss, Felipe Calderón.

We know everything and we commented on it thanks to the journalists who are covering the trial, because if it weren't for their chronicles we wouldn't find out since it isn't broadcast.

Journalists who, uh, the majority, if not all, are Mexican, like Elías Camhaji, a reporter for EL PAÍS, who has been carefully covering the trial from day one.

We often ask Elías what is being said in the US media about a trial that, despite the redundancy, says a lot about Mexico, but also about its neighboring country.

The answer is usually practically the same: “Nothing”.

Neither on the news, nor on the radio, nor in the most relevant newspapers in the United States, the trial against the former head of Mexico's security transcends.

As if the drugs trafficked by those narcos who detail how they operated the last gram did not end up being consumed in northern Mexico or the weapons with which they confront the authorities did not come from the United States.

The border between the curious and the cynical becomes, in this case, as porous as the thousands of kilometers that separate both countries.

🔴 The DEA confirms that it had information about bribing García Luna since he was in the Calderón Cabinet, more than 10 years ago

. An agent said it in the trial ⬇️⬇️https://t.co/Y9NWupTY3h

— Elias Camhaji (@eliascamhaji) February 2, 2023

At least, which is not little, it is the US justice that is doing the work that the Mexican authorities would be expected to do.

New York has become the confessional for drug traffickers, but also the mirror in which an entire country looks at itself, listening to how the head of security allegedly forged alliances with crime.

A damage that, beyond the sentence, will deepen the mistrust in the authorities and institutions.

Facing the confessional, Mexico is going to have to sit back on the couch and rethink how to deal with this scourge and why it continues to be incapable of judging it with its system, in its country.