Mexico’s ex-public security chief sentenced to 38-plus years in US for taking cartel bribes

Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A U.S. court has sentenced Mexico’s former public security chief to more than 38 years in prison for taking bribes to aid drug traffickers. Genaro García Luna was sentenced Wednesday in a New York federal court. He was convicted in 2023 of taking millions of dollars to protect the violent Sinaloa cartel, which he was supposedly combating. The 56-year-old García Luna was considered the architect of ex-President Felipe Calderón’s bloody war on cartels. He was also hailed as an ally in the United States’ fight against drug trafficking. But prosecutors say that in return for millions of dollars, García Luna provided intelligence to the cartel and the safe passage of massive quantities of drugs.