A Florida court has ordered Mexico’s former head of public security to pay more than $748m to his home country for his alleged involvement in government corruption.
Thursday’s ruling brought to a close a civil case first filed in September 2021 by the Mexican government.
The case centred on Genaro Garcia Luna, who served as Mexico’s security chief from 2006 to 2012. Garcia Luna is currently serving more than 38 years in a United States prison for allegedly accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel.
The Mexican government alleges that Garcia Luna also stole millions in taxpayer funds, and it has pledged to seek restitution, namely by filing a legal complaint in Miami, Florida, where it says some of the illegal activity took place.
On Thursday, Judge Lisa Walsh in Miami-Dade County not only required Garcia Luna to pay millions, but she also ordered his wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra, to pay $1.7bn. Altogether, the total neared $2.4bn.
In its initial 2021 complaint, the Mexican government – led at the time by former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador – accused Garcia Luna, his wife and their co-defendants of having “concealed funds stolen from the government” and smuggling the money to places like Barbados and the US.
“Under the direction of the Defendant GARCIA LUNA, the funds unlawfully taken from the government of MEXICO were used to build a money-laundering empire,” the complaint wrote.
It alleged those funds were used to finance “lavish lifestyles” for Garcia Luna and his co-conspirators, including real estate holdings, bank accounts and vintage cars, among them Mustangs from the 1960s and ’70s.
Separately, Garcia Luna faced criminal charges for corruption, with US authorities accusing him of pocketing millions while in office for working on behalf of the Sinaloa cartel.
Through his work with Mexico’s federal police and as its security chief, US prosecutors say Garcia Luna accessed information that he later used to tip off the Sinaloa cartel, letting them know about investigations and the movements of rival criminal groups.
Garcia Luna was also accused of helping the cartel move its shipments of cocaine to destinations like the US, sometimes using Mexico’s federal police as bodyguards – and even allowing cartel members to wear official uniforms.
In exchange, prosecutors say the cartel left money for him in hiding places, one of which was a French restaurant across the street from the US embassy in Mexico City. Some bundles of cash – offered in $100 bills – totalled up to $10,000.
After leaving office in 2012, Garcia Luna moved to the US. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. His defence lawyers have described him as a successful businessman living in Florida.
But in February 2023, a federal jury 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.
The Mexican government, however, alleged in its civil lawsuit that Garcia Luna also led a “government-contracting scheme” that included bid-tampering and striking dubious deals as a form of money laundering.
Those contracts included deals for surveillance and communications equipment. The Associated Press news agency reported that one such contract was falsified, and others were inflated.
Garcia Luna is the highest-level Mexican government official to be convicted in the US.
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