Genaro Garcia Luna, a former government official, has sentenced him to 38 years in prison to accept bribery.
A Florida court ordered a former public safety officer in Mexico to pay more than $748 million to their country on alleged involvement in government corruption.
The ruling on Thursday concluded a civil lawsuit first filed by the Mexican government in September 2021.
The incident was centered around Genaro Garcia Luna, who served as Mexico’s security director from 2006 to 2012. Garcia Luna has now worked in a US prison for more than 38 years, allegedly accepting millions of dollars of funding from the Sinaloa cartel.
The Mexican government has pledged to seek compensation by filing a legal complaint with Miami, Florida, who alleges Garcia Luna also stole millions of taxpayer funds and claims that some of the illegal activities have occurred.
On Thursday, Miami-Dade County Judge Lisa Walsh ordered Garciarna to pay $1.7 billion to his wife, Linda Christina Pereira, as well as to request millions of payments. Overall, the total was close to $2.4 billion.
In its first 2021 complaint, the Mexican government at the time led by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, accusing Garcia Luna, his wife and their co-defendants of “hiding funds stolen from the government,” and smuggling money into places like Barbados and the United States.
“Funds illegally taken by the Mexican government under the direction of defendant Garcia Luna were used to build a money laundering empire,” the complaint wrote.
These funds claimed to have been used to fund “a luxurious lifestyle” for Garcia Luna and his co-conspirators, including Mustangs of the 1960s and ’70s, including property ownership, bank accounts and vintage cars.
Separately, Garcia Luna faced criminal charges for corruption, accusing U.S. authorities of pocketing millions of people while in office while working on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Through his work with the Mexican federal police and as its security chief, US prosecutors say he accessed information that Garcia Luna had later turned the Sinaloa Cartel upside down, informing him of the investigation and the movements of rival criminal groups.
Garcia Luna was also accused of helping the cartel move cocaine cargo to destinations like the US, sometimes using Mexican federal police as a bodyguard, allowing cartel members to wear official uniforms.
In exchange, prosecutors say the cartel left money for him in a hidden location. One was a French restaurant across from the US Embassy in Mexico City. A bundle of cash provided on the $100 bill totaled $10,000.
After taking office in 2012, Garciarna moved to the United States. He pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His defense attorney describes him as a successful businessman living in Florida.
However, in February 2023, a federal ju judge in Brooklyn, New York convicted Garcia Luna on drug-related charges, including international cocaine conspiracy and conspiracy to import cocaine. The following year, in October, he was sentenced to decades in prison.
However, the Mexican government alleged in a civil lawsuit that Garcia Luna led a “government contract plan” that included bid tampering and surprising deals as a form of money laundering.
These contracts included surveillance and communications equipment transactions. The Associated Press news agency reported that one such contract has been forged and the other contracts have been inflated.
Garcia Luna is the highest level Mexican government official convicted in the United States.
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