Smuggler tells US jury he paid off ex-Mexico security chief

A onetime drug trafficker has testified that he paid a former top Mexican security official millions of dollars for help that included U.S. government information about a huge cocaine shipment in Mexico. Óscar Nava Valencia, known as “El Lobo,” or “The Wolf,” testified Monday at the U.S. federal drug trafficking trial of former Mexican security secretary Genaro García Luna. Nava Valencia said the payments were also intended to assure protection when a schism in the notorious Sinaloa cartel was heading toward a drug-world war. Defense lawyers haven’t yet had their chance to question Nava Valencia. They have argued that the case rests on lies from self-interested criminals.

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