“El Lobo” revealed in the early hours of this Monday that he personally paid García Luna more than 10 million dollars to have more control and security in the transfer of cocaine through Mexico.
According to the EFE news agency, “El Lobo Valencia”, a collaborating witness for the Prosecutor’s Office, assured that he met García Luna on two occasions, who returned to the trial in his dark, spirited and talkative suit.
The witness, for his part, appeared dressed in a yellow prisoner’s uniform, was sentenced to 13 years in prison in the United States for cocaine trafficking and plans to regain his freedom in March 2025, according to his testimony in the Federal Court room. of the Eastern District of New York, the agency explained.
According to journalist Keegan Hamilton, from Vice magazine, “El Lobo” was one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel who allegedly “raised” the money to pay him Garcia Luna.
This is “El Lobo” (The Wolf) Valencia, captured Oct. 2009 in Guadalajara, Jalisco.
Prosecutors introduced him to the jury through the testimony of El Grande, who described his kidnapping and cocaine trafficking, allegedly enabled by García Lunahttps://t.co/zh0NGnQHrV pic.twitter.com/EZdGBupGsA
— Keegan Hamilton (@keegan_hamilton)
January 30, 2023
According to EFE, “El Lobo Valencia” confirmed that he had contributed $2.5 million in 2006 to a collection made among Sinaloan drug traffickers to bribe the former Secretary of Public Security.
“They told me that we were going to make a collection among all of us. That we were going to have a bigger arrangement and more security for everyone,” said “El Lobo Valencia”, who at one point during the interrogation acknowledged having ordered the death of “more than a hundred people”.
“El Lobo” Valencia, according to trial testimony, chose the side of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán and Ismael Mario Zambada García “El Mayo” of the Sinaloa Cartel against the faction Los Beltran Leyva during the drug war of the year 2008-09.
“The Wolf” was caught in October 2009 in Guadalajara, Jalisco, and during the trial against “El Chapo” Guzmán, in 2019 in the US, he was also a key witness.
Mexico once again faces the turbidities of its war against drug trafficking with the trial in the United States of its former police chief, Genaro Garcia Luna prosecuted for cocaine trafficking and complicity with the Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Cartel.
(Illustration: JANE ROSENBERG/REUTERS)
The trial of the former Secretary of Security (2006-2012) has been at the heart of the matter since the first hearings, held before the same New York court that sentenced “Chapo” to life imprisonment in 2019 for drug trafficking.
The first “hot” testimony came on Tuesday when Sergio Villarreal Barragan a former Mexican narco, detailed the modus operandi of the alleged monthly payments delivered to García Luna by the Sinaloa cartel in exchange for their protection and information.
There is no evidence, responded the defense, which will seek to discredit the testimonies of former traffickers protected by the United States such as Villarreal, nicknamed “El Grande.”
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has promised a daily report on the process and has questioned local media coverage.
Trial Genaro García Luna, minute by minute
The president also reported that Mexico is trying to recover in a US court some 700 million dollars allegedly embezzled by García Luna.
