An FBI agent accuses the Mexican federal police of thwarting an operation against 'El Chapo' when it was led by García Luna 

A witness from the Prosecutor's Office in the trial against Genaro García Luna in New York pointed out this Wednesday again an alleged support from the former Mexican secretary to Joaquín

Guzmán, former leader of the Sinaloa cartel and sentenced to life imprisonment in the US, whom I would have given protection, denounced it, instead of fighting it.

An FBI agent identified as José Moreno described to the jury how an operation launched against Guzmán in the Mexican state of Baja California failed due, he said, to the Federal Police, then under the command of García Luna, who is being accused of the federal prosecutor's office to receive bribes from the drug trafficker.

On February 22, 2012, Moreno recounted, he summoned 64 Mexican federal agents at 1:30 p.m. (local time) in a residential area of ​​the town of Cabo San Lucas to assault a house where they believed

was .

But 50 showed up an hour late and, when the operation began, they searched two houses before entering the house where the drug lord was suspected.

Plus, he explained, they hadn't secured the perimeter. 

Moreno said that

was not caught, but in the house they found a large amount of weapons and detained several people.

Guzmán, 65, is serving a sentence for trafficking cocaine and other drugs into the United States for 25 years.

The Mexican authorities followed his steps for several years, until he was finally captured in 2016 in Mexico and extradited to the US in 2017. In the trial against him in New York, in 2018, in the same federal court and before the The same judge in the process against García Luna, it was when the first accusations about the money allegedly paid to the former secretary to help the drug trafficker were known.

The accusation against García Luna includes three charges for cocaine trafficking, one for organized crime and another for false statements;

if convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.

And in the trial against him, the name of

has been mentioned on several occasions;

the last time by Édgar

Veytia, former prosecutor of the state of Nayarit.

Moreno testifies in the trial of García Luna.Jane Rosenberg

The former prosecutor said that he received orders from the then governor of Nayarit, Ney González, which allegedly came from García Luna and former president Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) to protect Guzmán and his allies in the Sinaloa cartel in the midst of the internal war in the Beltrán Leiva criminal organization.

"The line was

," said the witness, who did not provide further details, arguing that these orders were not being questioned.

Calderón denied the accusation outright, calling it "an absolute lie."

Veytia, sentenced for supporting the Beltrán Leyva cartel —a split from the Sinaloa cartel— added that the same message also came to him from García Luna's

, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, who is also being prosecuted in Mexico for links to drug trafficking. and accused of torture. 

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has made it known that it suspected García Luna since 2010, when it received information from an arrested former drug lord about alleged bribes from Beltrán Leyva's organization.

The investigation was delayed for years due to complications to gather evidence.

The defense of García Luna, who has denied the accusation, describing it as a "revenge" of the drug trafficker supported by the United States authorities, used for his part this Wednesday the testimony of a former US ambassador in favor of his argument that it is about suspicions unfounded, without proof. 

Earl Anthony Wayne said, when asked by the defense, that during his time as ambassador to Mexico (2011-2015) he received periodic information from security agencies but there was never anything "specific or credible" that García Luna was corrupt. 

The former ambassador, who greeted García Luna's wife, who had been present at the process since it began three weeks ago, as he left the room, declared, on the other hand, that he had been informed that the US security forces preferred not to work with the Federal Police when it came to operations against the Sinaloa cartel.

For former President Felipe Calderón, the accusations that he agreed with 'El Chapo' are "absurd"

Feb 7, 202300:36

García Luna is accused of accepting suitcases of money — millions of dollars — to allow the Sinaloa cartel to operate with impunity while shipping tons of cocaine to the United States.

The Prosecutor's Office assures that, while it had the function of leading the fight in Mexico against drugs, it was in charge of ensuring that the cartel received information about the investigations, facilitating the passage of drugs through police checkpoints, and even providing aid of federal agents to traffic through airports.

García Luna's lawyer, César de Castro, has told jurors that the accusation is based on "rumor, speculation and the words of some of the biggest criminals in the world."