Former Mexican official sentenced to 38 years in U.S. prison for taking bribes

Prosecutors said García Luna deserved a sentence of life in prison because his job called for him to stifle the drug trade but instead he enabled it and was responsible for a wave of deaths he swore to try to prevent. While he was in power, tens of thousands of Americans died from cocaine overdoses, according to statistics cited by prosecutors.

“In exchange for millions of dollars, the defendant furthered a conspiracy responsible for the deaths of thousands of American and Mexican citizens,” prosecutors wrote in a Sept. 19 sentencing memo.

César de Castro, an attorney for García Luna, argued for leniency. García Luna submitted a handwritten letter to the court before the sentencing arguing that he was an honest public servant who was wrongly targeted and the victim of untruthful witnesses.

García Luna’s case has riveted Mexico, which has suffered about a half-million homicides since President Felipe Calderón declared a “war on drugs” in 2006, unleashing bloody fighting between security forces and crime groups.

García Luna served as minister of public security in 2006 to 2012 under Calderón and was responsible for creating a new federal police force. He was a key U.S. partner on a multibillion-dollar plan known as the Merida Initiative, aimed at dismantling the cartels.

García Luna took on the key Cabinet role after running the Federal Investigation Agency, Mexico’s version of the FBI, from 2001 to 2005. U.S. prosecutors say that he started receiving cartel bribes during that period, and continued while he served as a Cabinet minister.

He and his lawyers have insisted on his innocence, and emphasized how highly he was regarded in Washington. During his trial in 2023, he was shown in photos shaking hands with former president Barack Obama and meeting with former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

Evidence in the trial largely consisted of testimony by convicted drug traffickers.

Calderón, whose presidential term ended in 2012, has insisted that he fought the cartels “with the full force of the state” and was unaware of narco-corruption in his team.

In a letter to the judge seeking a lower sentence, García Luna alleged that Mexico’s current government opposed him because of his antidrug efforts, and had sent “false information” that led to his conviction.

President Claudia Sheinbaum rejected the allegation on Wednesday.

“Prosecutors in the United States, and a jury in the United States, have provided evidence of his ties to drug-trafficking, and the benefits he received for being involved with drug trafficking, at the very moment in which a war on drugs had been declared,” she said.

Sheridan reported from Mexico City. Gabriela Martínez in Mexico City contributed to this report.