However since then, the urge for food for such prosecutions has vanished, largely due to the collapse of one other Mexican corruption case in Brooklyn. In that one, Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico’s former protection minister, was arrested in late 2020 in Los Angeles, and accused of bribery and drug trafficking. However weeks later, after intense stress from Mexico, he was launched, as prosecutors dropped the costs.
An acquittal within the García Luna case may add to the already deep sense of defeat amongst U.S. prosecutors, whereas on the identical time giving the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, recent power to criticize the American authorized and political methods.
A conviction may assist blunt such arguments, although it will unlikely settle a unique subject: the lingering query of what U.S. officers knew about Mr. García Luna and once they knew it. The jury on the trial has heard little in regards to the suspicions in U.S. political and law-enforcement circles about Mr. García Luna and the selections made, regardless of them, to proceed working with him.
A number of U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement officers got here ahead to explain these suspicions however spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to talk publicly. Others interviewed have been former Mexican or American officers who are actually personal authorities consultants engaged on delicate issues.
Rumors about Mr. García Luna’s connections to the Sinaloa cartel began swirling as early as 2001, the yr he took management of the Federal Investigation Company — and the identical yr Mr. Guzmán escaped from a Mexican jail. Within the years that adopted, there have been persistent whispers within the Mexican information media about his ties to the cartel.
What we take into account earlier than utilizing nameless sources. Do the sources know the knowledge? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved dependable previously? Can we corroborate the knowledge? Even with these questions happy, The Occasions makes use of nameless sources as a final resort. The reporter and no less than one editor know the identification of the supply.
Michael Chavarría stated that quickly after taking on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s workplace in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2001, he realized that delicate info the company had shared with Mexican counterparts was getting used to tip off traffickers. When he knowledgeable his superiors on the U.S. Embassy in Mexico Metropolis, he stated, they shrugged him off, claiming there was no smoking gun.
