Former Mexican Top Cop Found Guilty Of Distributing 58 Tons Of Cocaine

Genaro Garcia Luna, once in charge of Mexico’s battle to root out illegal narcotics and vanquish drug kingpins, was convicted for secretly providing years of protection to “El Chapo” and the Sinaloa cartel. 

Garcia Luna, accused of helping cartel members import and distribute massive quantities of drugs into the US, was found guilty on Tuesday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, after a four-week trial that uncovered how narco-traffickers worked with the very Mexican government official appointed to go after them. 

The jury of six women and six men convicted Garcia Luna, 54, of all five counts against him, including multiple conspiracy counts for distributing and importing cocaine and the most serious charge, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. Under that charge, which carries a mandatory 20-year prison term and a maximum of life behind bars, the jury concluded that he had helped the cartel import tens of thousands of kilos of cocaine between 2002 and 2008.

He is the highest-ranking current or former Mexican official ever to be tried in the US.