The former Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna, maintained a network of corruption and money laundering for two decades that included a family conglomerate of 40 companies that obtained public resources for 745 million dollars that ended up in the United States and were used to acquire numerous real estate and luxury vehicles, the Mexican government announced Thursday.
This was reported by Pablo Gómez, head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) that depends on the Ministry of Finance, when presenting part of the evidence that makes up the lawsuit that the Mexican government introduced in September 2021 before a Florida Court to recover assets of the former official who has been facing a trial in the United States since last month for receiving million-dollar bribes to protect the Sinaloa Cartel.
During the morning presidential conference, Gómez affirmed that García Luna “wove a network of corruption and money laundering for personal benefit and his close associates” through some thirty contracts with public security agencies for which he obtained resources of 745.87 million dollars. dollars that were sent to the United States through tax havens, mainly in Barbados.
In his presentation, the head of the FIU presented some of the assets allegedly acquired by the former official through the corruption network, which included dozens of luxury vehicles, including a Rolls-Royce, a Lamborghini and a Ferrari.
The UIF managed to freeze García Luna’s accounts for 29 million pesos (about 1.5 million dollars) and about 10 companies linked to the former official, Gómez said.
The head of the UIF denounced that the Fifth Collegiate Court in Administrative Matters granted an injunction to unlock the assets of Luis Cárdenas Palomino, former head of the Regional Security Division and García Luna’s right arm, who was arrested in July 2021 on the outskirts from the Mexican capital. Cárdenas Palomino faces charges of torturing members of a kidnapping gang.
In September 2021, the FIU filed a lawsuit in Miami against 39 companies and trusts in which García Luna and his relatives participated.
Besides, to this demandGarcía Luna has three judicial processes pending in Mexico for illicit enrichment, the illegal entry of thousands of weapons that were given through the failed US federal operation known as “Fast and Furious”, and for some contracts that the Calderón government made with companies private companies to build and service federal prisons.
garcia moon was accused in the United States of accepting millions of dollars to allow the Sinaloa Cartel to operate with impunity while sending tons of cocaine to US territory, accusations that have been supported by several witnesses in the two weeks of trial.
The process has generated great expectations in Mexico due to the information that could come to light and compromise high-ranking Mexican officials, including Calderón, since many consider it very difficult for García Luna to have that level of collaboration with the Sinaloa cartel without that the former president was aware of it.
Between the dust unleashed by the judgment García Luna, the Mexican military forces gave a new setback to the Sinaloa Cartel on Thursday, by arresting José Guadalupe Tapia Quintero, alias ‘Lupe Tapia’, a member of that criminal organization in the northwestern town of Culiacán, confirmed to Associated Press a federal agent who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to release that information.
Tapia Quintero is accused of being an operator of Ismael ‘El Mayo’ Zambada, leader of a faction of the Sinaloa cartel.
The arrest of Tapia Quintero comes three weeks after the capture in the northwestern state of Durango of Gerardo Soberanes, a financial operator of the criminal group Cabrera Sarabia linked to the Sinaloa cartel, and a month after the arrest also in Culiacán of Ovidio Guzmán, one of the sons of former capo Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán and member of a faction of the criminal organization.
Source: VOA Español
