Genaro García Luna was kidnapped by members of the Beltrán Leyva cartel without any resistance from his escorts. This was revealed on Tuesday by Sergio Villarreal Barragán El Grande, drug dealer and first witness in the trial of the former security minister in New York. The former police officer also asserted that García Luna was “raised” by Arturo Beltrán Leyva, an old ally who declared war on the Sinaloa cartel in early 2008 and unleashed chaos in Mexico during Felipe Calderón’s first term (2006). -2012). “Nothing was impossible for Arturo,” said El Grande. “Anything is possible in Mexico, there is a lot of corruption,” he concluded in his testimony before the Brooklyn court.
Villarreal Barragán explained in detail how the break within the Sinaloa cartel and the drug war between the faction of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán and Ismael El Mayo Zambada and that of the Beltrán Leyva brothers came about. The drug lord hinted that one of the key factors was El Chapo convincing law enforcement to crack down on his old allies. “People from the government started falling for us,” El Grande said. Arturo Beltrán, the leader of the Beltrán Leyva, realized that the captures and confiscations almost always happened after he had spoken to El Mayo or El Chapo, at least that’s what he suspected. “He recognized the betrayal,” said his former lieutenant.
The straw that broke the camel’s back was the arrest of Alfredo Beltrán, aka Mochomo and Arturo’s brother, in an army operation in January 2008. Always following Villarreal Barragán’s testimony, the Beltrán Leyva faction could not believe that the payment was millions of dollars was bribes offered him no protection. El Grande said Monday that Arturo Beltrán was personally responsible for delivering more than $1 million in bribes to García Luna every month since he took over as director of the Federal Investigation during Vicente Fox’s administration (2000-2006). Agency (AFI) had taken over ). ). The bribes were delivered to a safe house south of Mexico City in black suitcases and bags.
When the defendant became head of the Secretariat for Public Security (SSP), a newly created ministry during the Calderón government, there was a change in the bribery scheme, the witness said. García Luna, then also chief of the federal police, no longer met personally with the members of the cartel, but almost always sent his right-hand man, Luis Cárdenas Palomino, then deputy director of private security for the SSP. According to this version, the former head of the AFI at times monitored the receipt of money by radio and long-distance calls.
“Which side are you on? With my cousin El Chapo or with me,” Arturo Beltrán asked García Luna, according to the story. “The problem is yours, I’m neutral,” the former official reportedly replied. According to the witness, the security minister most likely worked simultaneously with both factions together.”He continued to work for everyone: El Mayo and El Chapo, but also for Arturo,” El Grande said. “There were members of the Federal Police who left his side and others left with Arturo,” he added “It was a very violent war, we all started killing each other.”
After Mochomo’s capture, Arturo Beltrán had García Luna kidnapped, although no specific date was given. “They had raised it in the state of Morelos, on the way to Cocoyoc [un pequeño poblado a una hora y media de la capital]said the big one. The drug dealers took the cabinet member to speak with his boss in “an office” belonging to the Beltrán Leyva family. “They talked and then they let him go, they took him to where they picked him up,” said Villarreal Barragán.
The witness recalled that after the officer’s visit to the safe house in Morelos, drug traffickers such as Édgar Valdez Villarreal La Barbie or Alberto Pineda El Borrado laughed and talked in a corner of the house where there were many chargers lying around. It was the cartridges of the secretary’s companions who could do nothing about it. In 2010, writer Ricardo Ravelo published a similar story about an alleged kidnapping of García Luna by Beltrán, but he pointed out that it happened while he was in charge of the AFI. “See how easy it is to get hold of you?” is one of the phrases Ravelo attributed to the leader of the Beltrán Leyva cartel.
El Grande chronicled murders, kidnappings, and betrayals between old partners who later became enemies. Beltrán was so angered by his brother’s capture that he plotted to get revenge and finish off Jesús El Rey Zambada, El Mayo’s brother. The law of vengeance: brother to brother. “Arturo’s first plan was to kill him,” commented Villarreal Barragán, “I told him no, they were going to kill Alfredo [Mochomo Beltrán] in prison”.
César de Castro, Genaro García Luna’s attorney, at the opening hearing on January 23. JANE ROSENBERG (Portal)
Plan B was to arrest him. “Then he ordered the government to arrest him,” El Grande said. The Beltrán Leyva infiltrated the people of El Mayo to find El Rey, the man responsible for all of the El Chapo cartel’s shipments that passed through Mexico City’s airport. “There were two attempts, in the first we gave the information to the army, but they sold it to the people of El Rey,” Villarreal Barragán said in another testimony about the alleged corruption that runs rampant in the law enforcement agencies.
The second was at Siedo, the Office of the Special Prosecutor for the Investigation of Organized Crime. This institution, which reported to the then Republican Attorney General, was tasked with directing the capture operation against El Rey Zambada. The criminals had crept in there too. El Grande donned the uniform of an official state agent again, and other gunmen disguised themselves as Siedo agents. “I was part of the operation,” confirmed Villarreal Barragán. “There were some that we disguised.” The arrest was made in October 2008 amid a violent shooting in Mexico City, with the support of local police in the Mexican capital. “I ordered the Siedo people to take pictures of Rey and all those detained,” El Grande said. He was afraid that El Mayo and El Chapo’s contacts would exchange him for someone else and set him free. At the time, the witness emphasized: “Anything is possible in Mexico.”
El Grande said he’s seen all about law enforcement’s complicity with organized crime. For example, he referred to La Barbie’s wedding in Acapulco. The Beltrán-Leyva cartel received information from the authorities themselves at the time, while they were still allies of Sinaloa, that the ceremony was being infiltrated by agents and that they were planning to ambush several drug lords. In the end, the drug dealers laughed at the government. Nobody showed up for the wedding. “The party was held, but we didn’t go. Not even the”.
El Grande also spoke of his arrest on September 12, 2010, a Sunday afternoon in Puebla, in the center of the country. “I was at my house with my wife and son,” he said. Suddenly, a group of Marines broke open his door and pointed it at him. “I gave them my guns, I told them they were looking for me, and I told them to leave my family alone,” the drug dealer told Assistant District Attorney Erin Reid near the end of the interrogation. “They stole everything they could and they arrested me,” he said.
After his arrest, he asked to speak to a DEA agent. Instead, they took him to Marisela Morales, Siedo’s boss at the time. He didn’t feel safe working with the Mexican authorities. Villarreal Barragán was extradited in May 2012, six months before the end of Calderón’s term, who claims he was unaware of any links between members of his government and organized crime. Arturo Beltrán Leyva was killed in a naval operation in December 2009.
It was the turn of César de Castro and García Luna’s lawyers to question the witness. The defense has focused on questioning the credibility of the witnesses involved and ensuring it was a matter of political revenge on his client. De Castro sought to dismantle El Grande’s testimonies, although he asked an extensive series of questions about the bribes allegedly delivered to his client and suggested that Villarreal Barragán would benefit from speaking out against the former official. But the capo has already served his sentence and was paroled at least a year ago.
The prosecution won the first round, exhausting several jurors and others in the room after seven hours of hearings. The former secretary faces five charges: three for drug trafficking, one for organized crime and another for false testimony. The next witness called to testify was Tirso Martínez, a former operator of the Sinaloa cartel.
Subscribe here to the EL PAÍS México newsletter and receive all the important information about current events in this country