Corruption trial ripples beyond courtroom

As the prosecution of Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s former top security official, starts winding down, a jury will be called on to answer the central question in the case: whether Garcia Luna, who once served as the public face of his country’s war on drugs, led a double life.

But the trial’s outcome also will send ripples far beyond the New York federal courthouse where the jurors have heard stories about boatloads of cocaine, a cartel civil war and vast cash payments made to Garcia Luna in places like a drug- filled warehouse and a car wash.

An acquittal in the case could spark a firestorm in Mexico, casting doubt on the ability of U. S. authorities to collect convincing evidence about top- level Mexican corruption.

A conviction could have an equally serious but quieter effect, leaving unresolved a question mostly unanswered during the trial: What did U. S. officials know about Garcia Luna’s ties to Mexico’s biggest crime group, the Sinaloa drug cartel?

The indictment against Garcia Luna was supposed to have marked a new day for accountability: the first in a series of U. S. corruption cases brought against Mexican officials, U. S. federal prosecutors say.

The charges were filed in late 2019 in U. S. District Court in Brooklyn, months after a witness at the trial of Joaquin Guzman Loera, the drug lord known as El Chapo, testified in spectacular fashion about handing Garcia Luna suitcases stuffed with cash.

But since then, the appetite for such prosecutions has vanished. Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico’s former defense minister, was arrested in late 2020 in Los Angeles, and accused of bribery and drug trafficking. But weeks later, after intense pressure from Mexico, he was released.

An acquittal in the Garcia Luna case could add to the deep sense of defeat among U. S. prosecutors, while at the same time giving Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador fresh energy to criticize the American legal and political systems.