More than 600 million dollars from the Mexican public treasury would have been illegally and fraudulently obtained by Genaro García Luna and seven of his partnersin an intricate corruption plot in which 46 US companies received contracts from various government agencies, although in reality those consortiums belonged to the former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit has already provided -to a Florida Court- the evidence detailing the way in which García Luna operated between 2006 and 2018. Yes, there are substantial benefits achieved even after the man arrested today for drug trafficking left the government.
Through at least 30 contracts, organizations such as the Center for Investigation and National Security (CISEN) and the Federal Police, both now disappeared, as well as the Decentralized Administrative Body for Prevention and Social Readaptation (OADPRS), transferred the millionaire resources that the dessert, according to the FIU, ended up in the personal accounts of the former official, located in tax havens and in the United States.
All of this is detailed in a voluminous file with more than 700 court documents, a copy of which is in his possession. HIGH LEVEL, and that they are part of the civil lawsuit with which the FIU “seeks to recover more than USD $600,000,000 stolen from the government of MEXICO by its former Secretary of Public Security GENARO GARCIA LUNA” and his accomplices.
However, by adding the amounts of the contracts that appear in the evidence provided by the Financial Intelligence Unit, we obtain a total of 745 million 879,384 dollars, considering the expenditures for 256.8 million dollars in CISEN contracts; 83.6 million dollars from the Federal Police; $403.9 million from OADPRS; and $1.5 million from the former Mexico City Attorney General’s Office.
A substantial percentage of these public resources were transferred to the United States, which allowed García Luna “build a money laundering empire” with which he bought at least 30 companies located mainly in Florida, including several restaurants, 30 real estate properties, multiple cars and boats, in addition to substantial banking assets, details the FIU in the extension of its demand.
The action against the former Mexican official is filed in the Complex Commercial Litigation Division of the Eleventh Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County, Florida, where Judge Alan Fine He has already received the evidence with which the government of our country tries to demonstrate that the wealth, and the “luxurious lifestyle” of García Luna, have their origin in the “funds illegally taken” from the government of Mexico.
This lawsuit was filed in the Florida Circuit Court in September 2021, requesting the recovery of $250 million “stolen” by Genaro García Luna, but that amount was reformulated to more than $600 million in October 2022, when The UIF expanded its case and presented various evidence supporting the accusations against the also former head of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI).
Illegal contracts, transfers and purchases
According to the UIF, García Luna implemented as a public servant an illegal recruitment scheme in which American companies provided services and sold equipment to government agencies, based on quotations in which all prices were inflated.
The main mechanism used by the person who today is facing a trial for drug trafficking in a New York Court was the following: The CISEN, the Federal Police and the OADPRS, paid contracts for 452 million dollars through 65 transfers to Barbados, these deposits later They were sent to the United States, eventually reaching several company accounts belonging to García Luna and seven of his partners who are also sued.
As these were “stolen funds” from the Mexican federal government, García Luna set out to “launder” them through a skein of purchases and transactions, including the acquisition of real estate that he immediately mortgaged repeatedly.
The money from the mortgages was actually “freshly laundered proceeds from the illegal contracting scheme.” With this, García Luna and his associates additionally participated in activities that Florida law qualifies as organized crime.since the former official used the funds in new international bank transfers, with which the Mexican, his partners, and their companies paid taxes and fees on real estate acquired in the United States.
In the file, the attorney representing the Mexican government in the Florida Court, Carlos A. Acevedo, exposes several examples of the allegedly criminal activities of Genaro García Luna, highlighting one: Being still an official of the president’s administration Felipe Calderon, The defendant and one of his partners created the Los Cedros Restaurant and Beverage Operator in Florida.
Then, in 2012, Genaro García acquired, with money from the aforementioned contracts, the Italian restaurant Oggi Caffe, located north of Miami Beach, which helped him apply for his visa as an investor in order to legally reside in the United States.
The litigant assures that all the information provided by the former official to the US immigration authorities is false, since his wealth has an illegal origin, as well as the patrimony of José Francisco Niembro González, former Undersecretary of Information Technologies of the Ministry of Public Security, who appears in the UIF lawsuit as one of García Luna’s main partners.
Among the defendants is also the latter’s wife, Linda Cristina Pereyra de García; Mauricio Samuel Weinberg Lopez; Jonathan Alexis Weinberg Pinto; Sylvia Donna Pinto of Weinberg; Nathan Wancier Taub; and Martha Virginia Nieto de Niembro; together with 46 companies in which they and Genaro García Luna have a stake.
Additionally, the UIF argues that -at least since 2006- Weinberg López, Weinberg Pinto, and other co-defendants paid various bribes to García Luna.
In fact, the documents consulted list at least 76 payments for more than 10 million dollars in stuffing that Genaro García and José Francisco Niembro González allegedly received from Weinberg López, Weinberg Pinto, and the Nunvav INC and Nunvav Technologies consortiums.
It is therefore a money laundering scheme through an extensive and sophisticated network of companies in which García Luna is a partner, owner and/or investor, which obtained millions in income and profits from being contractors of the Mexican government.
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surya palaces Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.