Calderón Grapples with García Luna's Conviction

Politics. That glorious cesspool of ambition, scandal, and inevitable fall from grace. You can practically smell the scent of tarnished legacies and shattered dreams. And if you’re Felipe Calderón, Mexico's former president, the lingering stench of betrayal from your once trusted right-hand man is likely so thick you could cut it with a knife.

The year is 2012, and Calderón has just vacated Los Pinos, leaving behind a legacy defined by his infamous national security strategy. He might not have called it a “war on drugs,” but let’s not kid ourselves – that's precisely what it was. A war waged with good intentions and bad optics, one led by a man he trusted more than most, Genaro García Luna. And there’s no doubt about it – at the time, García Luna was Calderón’s golden boy, the civilian equivalent of a knight in shining armor. Except, in hindsight, that armor had some pretty sizeable cracks.

Fast forward to the present day, and things have taken quite a turn. García Luna, the former Secretary of Public Security, is now wearing an entirely different kind of outfit – the prison kind. You see, while Calderón was busy thanking and praising his security chief for “patriotism” and “courage” in his 2014 book Los retos que enfrentamos, little did he know that just a few years later, that very man would be found guilty of drug trafficking in a U.S. court and sentenced to 38 years behind bars. Oh, the irony.

But let's be honest, Calderón's adoration for García Luna is a bit like praising the Titanic for being unsinkable right before it hits the iceberg. In his book, Calderón waxes lyrical about the man, lauding him for achievements like creating the Plataforma México (a kind of criminal database), purging and beefing up the Federal Preventive Police, and leading operations with military precision. He’s portrayed as some kind of heroic figure, an engineer with a penchant for law and order, armed with industrial-grade spreadsheets and a vision for a better Mexico.

And to be fair, García Luna wasn’t entirely useless. Under his watch, the police force grew sixfold, budgets tripled, and a variety of operations against organized crime were launched across Mexico. It was a time of bravado, joint operations, and the distinct sense that something big was happening – even if it all felt a bit too Hollywood at times.

However, the real plot twist in this political drama is that García Luna, the man trusted to clean up Mexico’s streets, was allegedly working both sides of the law. According to his U.S. trial, he wasn’t just fighting the drug cartels – he was in bed with them. It’s the kind of betrayal that even Shakespeare couldn’t have dreamed up. The man who was meant to be leading the charge against crime was, it turns out, allegedly working with the very criminals he was supposed to be hunting. And what’s worse? Calderón didn’t see it coming. Or did he?

Calderón swears up and down that he had no idea. Not a clue. Not a whiff of suspicion. In his second book, Difficult Decisions, published in 2020, he addresses the arrest of his former security czar, expressing his shock and disappointment. He hoped, he said, for a fair trial, emphasizing the presumption of innocence. Yet, at the same time, Calderón insisted that the strategy he oversaw – one in which García Luna played a pivotal role – was still valid, still sound. He spins it like a man who’s just realized his car’s been stolen but insists it was parked in a perfectly safe spot. “It’s not my fault!” he seems to cry. “It’s the car thief’s!”

But how could he have missed it? García Luna wasn’t just any old bureaucrat. He was Calderón’s go-to guy for security – a man who coordinated some of the most critical operations of his presidency, like the 2008 occupation of the Luz y Fuerza company’s facilities. Calderón trusted him implicitly, yet somehow, this paragon of loyalty was leading a double life.

What’s even more fascinating is the support García Luna received from outside of Mexico. He was hailed by the DEA, Interpol, and even foreign governments like Spain and Colombia for his efforts against drug trafficking. His career in Mexico’s law enforcement stretched back to Vicente Fox’s presidency, and by the time Calderón came to power, García Luna was already a seasoned operator. So, was everyone fooled? Or was it a case of wilful ignorance? After all, organized crime’s ability to infiltrate government is hardly a new phenomenon in Mexico.

Calderón, for his part, has been adamant that his administration’s security policies weren’t the result of one man’s decisions – they were collaborative efforts, bolstered by cooperation with the U.S. government. He’s painted his tenure as a battle against the corrupting influence of organized crime, an influence that has seeped into the very fabric of the Mexican state. But for all his bluster, Calderón can’t shake the shadow of García Luna.

The real kicker here is that the U.S. legal system – the same one that had once praised García Luna’s efforts – has now branded him a traitor, a man who operated in the underworld while pretending to keep the streets clean. Calderón, meanwhile, has distanced himself from the entire debacle, claiming that he never had “verifiable evidence” of his top security official’s dirty dealings. It’s a bit like saying you didn’t realize your house was on fire because the smoke alarm was turned off.

And yet, you have to wonder: what did Calderón really know? Was he blinded by loyalty? Was García Luna just that good at playing both sides? Or was this all part of a larger, more nefarious plan, as some of Calderón’s detractors would have us believe? The answer, as always in politics, is murky.

Now, as Calderón stands by, watching his former right-hand man rot away in a U.S. prison, you can almost hear the sighs of “if only.” If only he’d chosen someone else for the job. If only he’d paid closer attention. If only he’d questioned García Luna’s methods sooner. But history doesn’t do “if onlys,” and Calderón is left to defend his decisions with all the charm of a man selling a used car that’s clearly been through a crash or two.

At the end of the day, it’s hard not to feel a bit of schadenfreude. Calderón’s golden boy has been exposed as a fraud, and while the former president may have had noble intentions, he’s now stuck with a legacy that’s been thoroughly tainted. Because no matter how many books he writes or tweets he posts, Calderón can’t escape the fact that the man he trusted most betrayed him – and Mexico – in the most spectacular fashion.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the messy, tragic, and deeply ironic legacy of Felipe Calderón. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.