“Socalj” for Borderland Beat
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A Florida judge has ordered Genaro García Luna to return $2.5 million to the Mexican government, which President López Obrador described as an “advance payment” on the more than US $600 million that Mexico seeks to reclaim from the former federal security minister who was convicted earlier this year in the US for drug trafficking conspiracy charges due to his corruption with the Sinaloa and BLO cartels.
Judge Lisa Walsh gave García Luna 10 days to repay Mexico 44 million pesos (US $2,524,500), as part of a civil lawsuit over several Florida apartments he bought with his wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra, through their company Delta Integrator.
Judge Walsh ordered the company to surrender US $1.97 million in assets from three liquidated properties, plus the proceeds from another apartment worth US $555,800, after finding that the defendants had defaulted by failing to attend the trial.
He said that since the money was obtained from acts of corruption committed in Mexico, the cost of three apartments purchased by García Luna and his wife in Florida could be returned within 10 days.
In March, the Mexican Treasury’s Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) reported that the full amount claimed against García Luna is US $745.9 million – nearly 300 times the amount adjudicated so far.