His trial begins tomorrow and García Luna could get many into trouble

From December 2006 to November 2012, during the administration of Genaro García Luna as Secretary of Public Security in the government of Felipe Calderón, according to data from the Executive Secretariat of the National Public Security System, 101,059 intentional homicides were registered in the country, 33.7% more than the 74,577 that were recorded in Vicente Fox’s six-year term. According to the consulting firm Lantia Intelligence, 64% of these homicides —almost 65,000— were related to organized crime. However, we may never know how many murders were committed because the number varies from various sources. The CDMX newspaper Reforma estimates that there were 50,000 murders; the newspaper Milenio, 58,000; Tijuana Weekly Z, 83,000; and the newspaper Le Monde, 120,000.

In addition to the murders, during the Calderon administration, 22,112 disappearances were reported, according to data from the National Registry of Data on Missing or Disappeared Persons (RNPED).

As a result of the war against drug trafficking whose strategy was designed by García Luna, during the period 2006-2012 not only did the violence generated by organized crime increase; more cartels dedicated to drug trafficking were also founded.

In the January-June 2015 issue of Reflections, the journal of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Costa Rica, researchers Jonathan Daniel Rosen and Roberto Zepeda Martínez wrote that “In 2006, there were six cartels: the Cártel Milenio, La Familia Michoacana, El Cártel de Golfo, El Cártel de Tijuana, El Cártel de Juárez, and the Cártel del Pacífico (…) In 2007 there were eight organizations, while by 2010 the number increased to 12 and in 2012, 16 cartels were identified. The fragmentation of the cartels presents bigger problems for the government as small organizations can function more easily because they are not as visible”.

At the end of Calderón’s term, García Luna went to live in Miami, Florida, where during his years in power he established businesses and acquired various properties, according to various journalistic reports.

On December 10, 2019, he was arrested in Dallas, Texas, at the request of the then federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of New York, Richard Donoghue, six days after a grand jury determined that from January 2001 to that date, García Luna conspired to smuggle cocaine into the United States. That day, Donoghue announced that the former head of the SSP was accused of “accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel, from Chapo Guzmán, while he controlled the Federal Police of Mexico and was responsible for guaranteeing public safety in Mexico.”

Since his arrest until today, García Luna has been imprisoned in a New York City jail and tomorrow, finally, after all his strategies to avoid him and his release have failed, his trial will begin and perhaps we will find out many things that they could get many former officials of the Calderón government and perhaps the former president himself into serious legal trouble.

If convicted, García Luna, 54, could spend the rest of his life in a high-security prison in the US.

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