But since then, the appetite for such prosecutions has vanished, largely because of the collapse of another Mexican corruption case in Brooklyn. In that one, Salvador Cienfuegos, Mexico’s former defense minister, was arrested in late 2020 in Los Angeles, and accused of bribery and drug trafficking. But weeks later, after intense pressure from Mexico, he was released, as prosecutors dropped the charges.
An acquittal in the García Luna case could add to the already deep sense of defeat among U.S. prosecutors, while at the same time giving the president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, fresh energy to criticize the American legal and political systems.
A conviction could help blunt such arguments, though it would not likely settle a different issue: the lingering question of what U.S. officials knew about Mr. García Luna and when they knew it. The jury at the trial has heard little about the suspicions in U.S. political and law-enforcement circles about Mr. García Luna and the decisions made, despite them, to continue working with him.
Several U.S. and Mexican law-enforcement officers came forward to describe those suspicions but spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Others interviewed were former Mexican or American officials who are now private government consultants working on sensitive matters.
Rumors about Mr. García Luna’s connections to the Sinaloa cartel started swirling as early as 2001, the year he took control of the Federal Investigation Agency — and the same year Mr. Guzmán escaped from a Mexican prison. In the years that followed, there were persistent whispers in the Mexican news media about his ties to the cartel.
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
Michael Chavarría said that soon after taking over the Drug Enforcement Administration’s office in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2001, he realized that sensitive information the agency had shared with Mexican counterparts was being used to tip off traffickers. When he informed his superiors at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, he said, they shrugged him off, claiming there was no smoking gun.
