Bush-Era CIA Torture Official Says Convicted Mexican Former Drug Czar is Innocent
Jose Rodriguez, the one-time head of the National Clandestine Service, speculates Mexico’s left-wing government framed Genaro García Luna
On Wednesday, a federal judge in New York will sentence Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former drug czar, following his conviction for drug trafficking and continuing a criminal enterprise—and an architect of the Bush-era torture program is coming to his defense.
As a former cabinet level official and Mexico’s former “top cop,” García Luna collaborated closely with U.S. law enforcement agencies, all while receiving at least $274 million in bribes to help facilitate the Sinaloa Cartel’s cocaine trafficking operations. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a life sentence for García Luna; his attorney is asking for a sentence of 20 years. Late on Tuesday, he submitted a letter to the judge asking for a lenient sentence, and to be allowed to return "as soon as possible" to his family and to society.
Yet García Luna still has friends in high places. In mid-September Jose Rodriguez, the 31-year CIA veteran who helped develop and cover up the agency’s torture program during the War on Terror, submitted a letter on his behalf. Typically, defense attorneys submit such letters from those who know the convicted individual and seek to argue for a lighter sentence. In his letter, Rodriguez describes García Luna as a “visionary” who wants only to help Mexico, and suggests that Mexico’s left-wing government may have “framed” him.
Rodriguez also notes that his own “informal vetting” of García Luna turned up no compromising information. “Perhaps there was some derogatory information in a very secret data base in the files of law enforcement and intelligence that was very closely held but I think that given the level of people I was asking in the law enforcement arena, I am skeptical,” he writes. The letter also underscores García Luna’s strong ties with U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies, from both before and after his time in office. Rodriguez also makes an emotional appeal to the judge, writing that his “heart brakes [sic] for his wife Cristina and his kids.”
While Rodriguez is one of 31 people to write letters of support for García Luna, his background makes his submission particularly notable. As director of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, Rodriguez helped devise, and, later, cover up, the agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program, which was criticized as torture by international human rights organizations. Under the Obama administration, the Justice Department refused to prosecute Rodriguez for the 2005 destruction of tapes that documented two high-profile Al-Qaeda suspects being subjected to the torture techniques at a CIA black site prison in Thailand. “We did the right thing for the right reason — and the right reason was to protect the homeland and to protect American lives,” he said during a 2012 interview on 60 Minutes.
Rodriguez retired from the CIA in 2008 and is a board member and advisor to security and technology companies. Through the CEO of one of those companies, Rodriguez declined to comment for this story.
‘A useful asset’
García Luna began his law-enforcement career in the late 1980s as an agent with the Center for National Security and Investigation, Mexico’s internal intelligence agency, focused on fighting left-wing guerrillas in the country. According to Rodriguez’s letter, the two men met in 1998. During the mid-1990s, Rodriguez served as the CIA’s Latin American Division chief, and later as the CIA’s station chief in Mexico. García Luna had risen through the ranks of Mexico’s federal law enforcement agencies, becoming the intelligence coordinator for the Federal Preventive Police in 1998.
Rodriguez’s letter offers no further details regarding their professional or personal relationship from this time. It is unclear how the CIA and federal law enforcement in Mexico worked together during Rodriguez’s time in the country.
But ties between the CIA and Mexico date back to the Cold War, when the agency conducted surveillance on student organizations, trade unions, and other left-wing organizations—a period known in Mexico as the Dirty War, when the government and right-wing paramilitaries engaged in disappearances and massacres. Four Mexican presidents from this period were CIA assets, exchanging intelligence with the CIA about Cubans, Soviets, and left-wing groups, declassified agency documents have revealed.
After the September 11 attacks, Rodriguez left for the U.S. to coordinate the CIA’s counterterrorism work. García Luna became the director of the Federal Investigative Agency, Mexico’s equivalent to the FBI, in 2001.
Alexander Aviña, an associate professor of history at Arizona State University, said Rodriguez likely saw García Luna “as a useful asset” and that the CIA’s interests are often distinct from those of the DEA and FBI. “Someone like José Rodriguez could work with García Luna, knowing he’s working for the Sinaloa Cartel. But it doesn’t matter, as long as García Luna is helping further a certain CIA approach to dealing with drugs and cartels.”
In 2006, President Felipe Calderon appointed García Luna as secretary of public security, a powerful cabinet-level position. During his tenure, García Luna consolidated several law-enforcement agencies into the Federal Police, expanded the secretariat’s surveillance operations, and oversaw the start of Mexico’s ongoing war against drug cartels, a bloody campaign that has led to over 400,000 deaths and tens of thousands disappeared.
García Luna also worked closely with U.S law enforcement and intelligence agencies to combat organized crime. The DEA ran operations in Mexico through a specialized unit of the Federal Police that received training from their U.S. counterparts, carried out arrests, and engaged in shootouts with major cartel leaders. During his trial, García Luna’s defense attorney presented pictures of him standing alongside U.S. government officials, including former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former President Barack Obama.
From at least 2003 through 2012, García Luna was also on the payroll of the Sinaloa and Beltrayn Leyva organizations, according to testimony from former organized crime bosses who became cooperating witnesses for the U.S. government. In exchange for hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes, he turned a blind eye to their cocaine trafficking business, provided them with sensitive information about anti-narcotics operations, and helped them recover confiscated cocaine, while focusing Mexico’s Federal Police on their rivals, the Gulf and Zetas organizations, according to trial testimony.
García Luna’s powerful position also gave him the power to direct security funding assistance from the U.S. Via the 2008 Mérida Agreement, Washington sent billions of dollars to Mexican officials to help fight the cartels. As secretary of public security, García Luna put much of that funding towards training officials and expanding surveillance and intelligence networks. According to testimony from a former organized crime leader during his trial, the Federal Police helped traffic drugs through the Mexico City airport during this time.
Cesar de Castro, García Luna’s attorney, did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2012, García Luna retired from public office and moved to Florida. There, he founded GL & Associates Consulting, a private firm that provided security and risk analysis to public and private clients, and conducted public-opinion research on security issues in Mexico. Among the board of directors were several other former law-enforcement officials from the U.S., Colombia, and elsewhere—including Rodriguez.
According to Rodriguez’s letter, he met with García Luna and visited his house north of Miami, which the former CIA officials describes as “nothing out of this world.” A report from ProPublica last year based on DEA sources revealed that García Luna’s Florida house, valued at $3.3-million, had been purchased by a Mexican security executive and his son, who were also business partners with the former drug czar.
From 2012 to 2019, García Luna’s life in the private sector continued. Then, during the trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the notorious former head of the Sinaloa drug organization, an organized crime leader testified that, on two occasions, he had given Garcia Luna duffel bags stuffed with $3 million, in exchange for facilitating the cartel’s operations. In December 2019, DEA officials in Texas arrested García Luna (the reason for the delay is unclear).
García Luna’s business interests have also come under scrutiny. In 2021, the Mexican government filed a civil lawsuit in Florida against García Luna and his business associates, alleging he took over $700 million from government contracts he illegally obtained through his business connections. Judge Brian Cogan, who presided over his trial, barred the introduction of any evidence from his time in business.
While rumors of García Luna’s links to organized crime had surfaced as early as the mid-2000s, the U.S. continued to work with him until his retirement in 2012. At his trial, a DEA agent testified that the agency first learned of his corrupt dealings in 2010. Since his trial, Senator Chuck Grassley has pressed the DEA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security for information on how much classified information García Luna had access to and when the DEA knew of allegations of his corruption.
Neither the DEA nor The Eastern District of New York provided a comment for this story. Senator Grassley’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Unscrupulous cartels’
After his conviction, García Luna’s attorneys sought to appeal the jury’s decision and asked for a new trial. As part of their motion, they argued that the prosecution had not presented them the entirety of the evidence. The defense had also gathered more information after the trial, including a calendar entry showing the CIA had trained over two dozen officers with the Secretariat of Public Security to surveil cartels and send intelligence to the CIA. Because he was helping the CIA, they argued, García Luna could not have been guilty. (It is unknown if that group of CIA-trained officers continues to exist and operate in Mexico.) In requesting a lenient sentence, García Luna’s attorneys also submitted images of over 45 awards presented to him by the DEA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and other agencies from different countries, including Spain, Colombia, Ukraine, and others.
On August 7, Judge Cogan, who presided over both García Luna and El Chapo’s trials, denied the motion for a new trial. Prosecutors had accused García Luna of attempting to bribe his fellow prisoners at the Brooklyn federal prison to convince them to present false information to overturn his conviction.
Last month, García Luna wrote a letter to media organizations proclaiming his innocence. He asserted that the U.S. had not presented any documents, photographs, or video or audio recordings at his trial proving his connection to organized crime. He also disclosed that U.S. officials had offered him a deal to become a cooperating witness against corrupt Mexican officials, in exchange for six months in jail—an offer he rejected, for reasons unclear.
His letter also argued that policy changes under former President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador helped organized crime groups. While Lopez Obrador sought to establish autonomy from Washington and focus on social reforms, he also further militarized public security with some U.S. funding and training assistance. The DEA has also investigated allegations that his presidential campaigns received drug money, ProPublica reported this year.
Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s new president, is expected to continue with many of Lopez Obrador’s progressive social policies. At the same time, some of her incoming cabinet members have been accused of working with organized crime. As security minister, she has tapped Omar García Harfuch, who worked under García Luna as a Federal Police officer. He later became commander of a Federal Police unit implicated in the 2014 disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students in the state of Guerrero.
In his letter submitted on Tuesday, García Luna warns that Mexico's "judicial power has just been dismantled," threatening the country in its fight against drug trafficking. The country "is entering a very dangerous stage, moving away from democracy and constraining individual freedoms," he writes.
Rodriguez also takes issue with Mexico’s left-leaning presidents. In his letter, he speculates that Lopez Obrador may be framing García Luna. “Over the past six years the country has been governed by a leftist administration that despises Mexican governments from the past,” he writes. “Between this fact and the unscrupulous cartels that would like nothing better than to go after Genaro, is it possible that he is being framed?”
Rodriguez’s letter continues by appealing to Judge Cogan: “I trust the US judicial system and expect that it has sorted out the spider web of interests, misinformation and treachery involved in the case against Genaro.”
“Trusting that Genaro has been justly tried, my only request is that Genaro be given the minimum sentence possible under the law,” Rodriguez concludes.
First off, you probably don't have a 31-year career in CIA and become Director of National Clandestine Services without causing considerable death, directly or indirectly, in service of empire. So, what a great character reference. Secondly, CIA infiltrators around the globe most likely direct and arm the drug cartels for profit, and to threaten socialist-leaning governments, then use DEA as a secondary infiltration method - claiming to fight those cartels; arm and protect cartels while State Dept suggests DEA to help fight them equals one big foreign infiltration scam.
Additionally, this torture mf'er Rodriguez should himself be behind bars forever along with his sideshow Haspel - who helped him destroy that evidence of their heinous crimes. And that's another thing the Dems were always complicit in, with Congressional intel insiders from both parties having been briefed on the torture program as early as 2002, not to mention a phony Senate torture investigation that took 7 years to produce an invisible report and helped cover up everything with time.
I've heard a number of opposition candidates in Mexico were conveniently eliminated. Go figure. It remains to be seen whether Claudia Sheinbaum's truly an AMLO anti-empire successor, or a CIA plant. Time will tell.
As a teen I avidly read Carlos Castaneda, but I liked his 'Don Genaro' very much. ;)