Sept 28
th Mexico City – At an appearance today with the San Lazaro commission, the Secretary of Public Security (SSP) said that the investigation into the massacre of 72 migrantes at a farm in San Fernando, Tamaulipas has resulted in the arrest of individuals believed to be responsible for the murders.
In response to a question during a press conference, Garcia Luna denied rumors that he had met with Arturo Beltran Leyva only hours before the drug lord died after an armed confrontation with elements of the Mexican Army in the city of Morelos. He rejected “with full contention” that he had a friendship of any kind the man known as El Jefe de Jefes.
“These are lies, like so many that have been created in order to generate media speculation; its a lie, that's it. Period. All the work that the intelligence community does on behalf of the federal government, including the operation that brought down Arturo Beltran Leyva was acted upon with the full participation of the SSP.”
“
He who accuses bears the burden of proof” and he assured that the dates and times of his supposed meetings were “misinterpreted, the accounts do not correspond to the truth and are part of a media scheme” contrived against him.
Update 9/29/10
The Deputy for the Labor Party, Gerardo Fernandez Norona has demanded Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna give an accurate statement of his financial accounts and his properties, in addition to asking that the SSP take responsibility for the injustices that have occurred in the country during his watch.
Calling the Garcia Luna names like “Murderer” and “Wealthy Man” the deputy said in his accusations, “Since the year you got started your criminal career has advanced dramatically.” Fernandez Norona also asked the SSP to explain how he could afford a 20 mil peso (1.6 USD) home, camping grounds estimated value 15 mil pesos which were converted into a restaurant now with an estimated value of 7.5 mil pesos, all on the salary of a public official, a yearly 250,000 pesos.
Accusing Garcia Luna of murder, Fernandez Norona proceeded with his comments on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies, “You are the worst the Calderon Government has to offer, we will not rest until you pay for your crimes.” as he rattled off cases of kidnappings and murders of politicians that have occurred in the past few months on Mexico.
“I ask you where is Diego Fernandez de Cevallos? Since you're such a spectacular investigator I find myself wondering how is you haven't the slightest clue where is such an important political and national figure?”
The Deputy also referred to the innocent victims that have died, including the students from Tec de Monterrey, in that case the deceased had firearms planted on them to make them look like sicarios, a statement that was later retracted by the SSP. He also accused Garcia Luna of cronyism
“You have your sister Esperanza Garcia Luna on the payroll to the tune of 180,000 pesos working as a secretary in the agency which you direct. She makes about as much as the head of the central back of Mexico.”
In response Garcia Luna produced various documents and receipts to show how he paid for these properties and vehemently denied the charges leveled against him. He maintained that he has been a servant of the state for 15 years and had 15 years worth of documentation to back up his property purchases. Furthermore, the SSP stated that he was a champion of human rights, which to his admission there have been mistakes but his office has cooperated fully with the office of the Attorney General (PGR), to facilitate the arrest of violent narcotraffickers.
To give this story context, this is not the first time Garcia Luna has had to deny ties to organized crime. I didn't translate it and although the article is two years old, I felt it would be a good piece to go along with the events of today's appearance by the Secretary of Public Security.
- Smurf
Links Between Mexican Security Secretary Garcia Luna and Drug Kingpin “El Mayo”
Tuesday, November 25th 2008
by Ricardo Ravelo, Proceso
translated by Kristin Bricker
Federal police say Garcia Luna's bodyguards witnessed the head of Mexico's Public Security Ministry discuss an "agreement" with a drug cartel gangster
The Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna, who is considered untouchable and Felipe Calderon's "spoiled official," has maintained numerous public officials accused of having links to drug traffickers--El Mayo Zamabada in particular--in his inner circle. An investigation carried out by agents who are opposed to the proposed police integration assure in a letter sent to Congress, which Proceso has a copy of, that this past October numerous armed men intercepted Garcia Luna on a highway and disarmed members of his escort while a gangster warned him, "This is the first and last warning so that you know that, yes, we can get to you if you don't follow through on the pact..." The document adds that then Garcia Luna withdrew from the spot for four hours in order to negotiate with the gangster...
With his powerful tentacles and his ability to corrupt police and infiltrate the institutions responsible for combatting drug trafficking--including the National Defense Department--, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia has extensive control within the Public Security
Ministry (SSP in its Spanish initials), which is led by Genaro Garcia Luna, whose main collaborators--some of them currently held under administrative detention--are accused of being at the service of the man who today is considered to be the top boss of the Sinaloa cartel.
The owner of estates and ranches, untouchable in Sinaloa--his stronghold--, Zambada Garcia has broad networks of complicity at his disposal in the most important departments in the PGR [Federal Attorney General's Office], such as the SIEDO [
the Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime], and in the SSP, where various top-level officials are being investigated for serving the gangster who, following the example of Amado Carrillo--who for many years was his business partner--, transformed his appearance with plastic surgery.
Also untouchable and considered to be President Felipe Calderon's "spoiled official," Garcia Luna doesn't appear to escape the networks that Zambada Garcia and the Beltran Leyva brothers created in the SSP. The Beltran Leyva brothers left the Sinaloa cartel following a division sparked by the aprehension of Alfredo "El Mochomo" Beltran this past January.
Police who are opposed to the federal police unification project carried out an investigation regarding the alleged ties between Garcia Luna and Zambada Garcia's and Arturo "El Barbas" Beltran Leyva's cells.
In a field investigation, backed up by records and revelations that were supposedly made by Garcia Luna's own body guards,
the police agents reconstructed an episode that occurred this past October 19 in Morelos state, which they recount in a letter sent to the Chamber of Deputies [Mexico's lower house of Congress] and the Senate with the goal of demonstrating, according to the agents, the danger that granting more power to the SSP would entail. They assert that a significant number of SSP police commanders are working for drug traffickers.
The document details:
...This past October 19 (...) the current Federal Secretary of Public Security, Genaro Garcia Luna and his escort, comprised of approximately 27 agents, (...) was intercepted or summoned on the Cuernavaca-Tepoztlan highway by a high-ranking gangster who was accompanied by an undetermined number of shooters or hitmen in approximately 10 armored Suburbans. Said official's escort did nothing to protect him, apparently due to a verbal order from him (Garcia Luna).
The letter that is now in the hands of legislators--a copy was delivered to
Proceso--adds that members of Garcia Luna's escort, under orders "from the high ranking drug gangster," were disarmed and blindfolded for "approximately four hours."
The agents who are familiar with the incident, and whose names are omitted for fear of reprisals, state in the document that the "gangster's" voice said to Garcia Luna: "This is the first and last warning so that you know that, yes, we can get to you if you don't follow through on the pact."
The document asserts that, after the gangster's statement, Garcia Luna retreated, "leaving his escorts to their own luck, without knowing the route he took or what he did during those four long hours, time in which he could talk in a more comfortable place away from the spot where the alleged incident occurred."
And, in another point, the letter says:
It shouldn't go unnoticed that the Secretary in question is an expert actor in deceit. It should be remembered that in the past he created a circus around a kidnapping in Ajusco in Mexico City in which a French woman was supposedly involved, where he summoned the televised media and (...) manipulated all of his bodyguards, making them believe that what happened was a drug gangster's attempt to intimidate (a levanton or drug-related kidnapping), though the truth is that it was a meeting arranged by this alleged gangster.
According to investigations carried out by
the Assistant Attorney General’s Office for Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SIEDO), a good number of the officials closest to Garcia Luna appear to be contaminated by drug trafficking. Evidence that the SSP is one of the institutions most infiltrated by the Sinaloa cartel and other illicit organizations has arisen since the Vicente Fox adminstration, and even more under the current administration.
For example, Édgar Enrique Bayardo del Villar, ex-inspector assigned to the Federal Preventive Police's Operations Section, was taken into custody by the SIEDO for allegedly serving Zambada Garcia. Close to Garcia Luna, with a salary no higher than MX$26,000 monthly [at the time approximately USD$2,600], Enrique Bayardo rose out of poverty to achieve a magnificent wealth.
According to the investigation of the facts, in which PFP agents Jorge Cruz Méndez and Fidel Hernández are also implicated, Bayardo del Villar today owns two residences with a combined value of close to 9 million pesos.
Overnight, Bayardo del Villar broke out of his financial difficulties and bought himself BMW, aMercedes Benz, and an armored Cherokee. He spent 12 million pesos on these acquisitions and, just like his residences, he paid for them in cash.
Another piece of this network that is presumably at the service of the brothers Jesús and Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada--within Garcia Luna's inner circle of trust--is Gerardo Garay Cadena, ex-commissioner of the PFP, who this past November 1 resigned from his position to voluntarily put himself "at the disposal of the authorities," although the SIEDO immediately put him under administrative detention. During the inquiries the spotlight also fell on other officials linked to Garay Cadena. One of them is Francisco Navarro, chief of the SSP's Special Operations, with broad control over the Mexico City International Airport, known as one of the major operations centers where drugs come in and drug trafficking money goes out.