Genaro García Luna, a key drugs war figure, is found guilty of taking bribes from a drug cartel.
A former Mexican security minister has been convicted by a US jury of drug trafficking.
Genaro Garcia Luna, once the face of Mexico’s war on drugs, was found guilty of taking millions of dollars from Mexico’s biggest crime group, the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Garcia Luna – who was arrested in the state of Texas in 2019 – had pleaded not guilty.
The 54-year-old could face up to 10 years in prison for the charges.
The verdict came after a four-week trial in US District Court in Brooklyn, New York.
Prosecutors allege the former head of the Mexican equivalent of the US Federal Bureau of Investigations accepted millions of dollars stuffed in briefcases and delivered by cartel members.
He is the highest-ranking Mexican official ever to be tried in the US on drug trafficking charges.