By Jared Taylor
MCALLEN, Texas, April 30 (Reuters) – Investigators have
moved to seize millions in assets from a former Mexican state
treasurer and fugitive under investigation for money laundering
and engaging in organized criminal activity in the United
States, authorities said on Monday.
Hector Javier Villarreal, the former state treasurer in
Mexico’s Coahuila state, is under investigation by the Texas
Attorney General’s Office, Internal Revenue Service and Drug
Enforcement Administration for money laundering and engaging in
organized criminal activity, said Tom Kelley, spokesman for the
state’s attorney general.
Villarreal is considered a fugitive with an Interpol warrant
filed in Mexico, Kelley said. His whereabouts remain unknown.
The state of Coahuila covers a vast expanse of arid desert south
of the Rio Grande from western Texas.
No criminal indictment has been filed against Villarreal,
but court documents show $6.5 million in assets, which Texas
prosecutors have moved to seize, Kelley said.
Kelley said the Texas Attorney General’s Office was asked to
lead the investigation. An IRS spokeswoman could not be reached
for comment on Monday.
Villarreal was treasurer in Coahuila state when it was
governed by Humberto Moreira, an ally of Enrique Pena Nieto,
presidential candidate for the opposition Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), and hot favorite to win the July 1
election.
Moreira governed the northern state between 2005 and 2011
and then became PRI chairman. However, his term as chairman was
cut short by a scandal over the state’s finances.
Last August it emerged that Moreira had presided over a huge
increase in Coahuila’s debt, which more than tripled to nearly
34 billion pesos ($2.61 billion) by the end of his term.
The finance ministry launched an investigation into
suspected financial wrongdoing in Coahuila, increasing pressure
on Moreira, and he quit as PRI chairman in December.
Analysts say a money laundering scandal could hurt Pena
Nieto and the PRI, which had become a byword for corruption by
the time the party’s 71-year rule in Mexico ended in 2000.
Josefina Vazquez Mota, presidential candidate of the ruling
National Action Party (PAN) said after media reports began
circulating about Villarreal’s alleged wrongdoing this weekend
that the PRI had to “explain its complicity with criminals.”
(Reporting by Jared Taylor; Additional reporting by Dave Graham
in Mexico City; Editing by David Bailey and Eric Walsh)
