Mexico City, Mexico — President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the United States should return reclaimed money in the Garcia Luna case to Mexico. López Obrador says that Mexico will insist, before US authorities, that any resources recovered from Genaro Garcia Luna, the former Federal Secretary of Public Security, be returned to the country.
Garcia Luna is facing facing a trial for drug trafficking in the United States. US prosecutors accuse García Luna of accepting a million-dollar bribe to facilitate the entry of 53 tons of cocaine into the United States, which the El Chapo-Guzmán cartel introduced between 2001 and 2012.
The US government says that the former Mexican official has been part of the ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel since January 2001.
AMLO says that money recovered in the case should be returned. “Even if they are trials that are carried out in the United States, they have to return the money to us, whatever the amount,” he said Wednesday at his morning press conference, adding this is something the government of Mexico has “raised in all cases” in which Mexicans are tried in the US.
During the upcoming Garcia Luna trial, some former members of the Sinaloa Cartel are expected to testify. The trial is being referred to as the sequel to the so-called “Trial of the Century” against Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán due to the alleged links of the former director of the Federal Investigation Agency (between 2001 and 2005) with the Sinaloa Cartel.
In total, Garcia Luna faces five charges. Three for drug trafficking conspiracy, one for continued membership in a criminal organization, and another for issuing false statements to US authorities when he applied for US citizenship in 2018.
