Mexico City, October 24, 2017 — In order to dismantle the networks used by corrupt Mexican officials to launder money and invest in illegal assets in the United States, Anthony M. Perrone, leader of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), requested that the United States Senate Judiciary Committee investigate how the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutes cases involving allegations of corruption of officials from Mexico.
“We have discovered that the network allegedly involved with laundering monies obtained by Javier Duarte, the former Governor of Veracruz recently extradited from Guatemala to Mexico, is still selling assets in Florida that are the subject of investigation in Mexico,” said the trade unionist in a letter sent to Senator Charles E. Grassley, President of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The letter also stated that “[a]t this juncture, it does not appear that either the corrupt politicians or their networks view the United States as too risky a place to park some portion of their assets.”
In addition, Perrone said in the letter that “[i]t has not escaped our attention that the political dynamics in Mexico hinder full cooperation between Mexico and the United States. The PRI currently controls the federal machinery of prosecution against corrupt state officials, yet all the governors currently under prosecution were elected as members of the PRI.”
Copies of the letter, both in English and in Spanish, can be found via this link http://chedrauileaks.org/prestanombres/?lang=en The platform also offers diverse documents showing how properties in the network allegedly involved with Javier Duarte have been sold in Florida.
ChedrauiLeaks.org is a project of the UFCW. Among other things, it reports information about the business dealings and personal assets in the United States of what could be termed Mexican elites, wealthy business people and politicians. ChedrauiLeaks is not stating that members of the Chedraui family or its businesses had any involvement with the networks referred above.
Below is the letter transcribed in full sent by the union representative to the Senate.
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I am writing to request that the Senate Judiciary Committee investigate the issue of how the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutes cases involving allegations of corruption of high-level elected officials from Mexico. Several governors of Mexican states are the subject of investigation and prosecution in both Mexico and the United States for bribery, money laundering, and other crimes.
It is clear that, historically, corrupt Mexican officials have parked some portion of their ill-gotten riches in the United States, a country they perceive to be a safe haven. The “investments” amount to tens of millions of dollars.
My staff has been researching a number of these cases, and we believe that there is a public policy issue that has been neglected by the Department of Justice.
The issue involves, in our view, the failure to fully prosecute the so-called “prestanombre” networks that corrupt Mexican politicians use to launder and invest their corrupt assets in the U.S. These are networks of people trusted by the corrupt officials, who then establish companies in the U.S. and launder the officials’ corrupt assets.
While it is true that some U.S. Attorney’s Offices have seized assets and obtained guilty pleas from some people in the networks in return for testimony against corrupt officials, we believe that a review of these cases will reveal that the legal risks to the “prestanombre” networks are not significant enough to deter others from committing crimes in the future.
We support the prosecution of high-profile corrupt politicians. However, it is also in both our and Mexico’s public interest for members of the politicians’ money laundering networks to be heavily sanctioned for their illegal activity. At this juncture, it does not appear that either the corrupt politicians or their networks view the United States as too risky a place to park some portion of their assets. For example, we have discovered that the network allegedly involved with laundering monies obtained by Javier Duarte, the former Governor of Veracruz recently extradited from Guatemala to Mexico, is still selling assets in Florida that are the subject of investigation in Mexico. Either our cooperation agreements with Mexico are ineffective or our laws are insufficient to prevent this. In either case we believe this a worthy subject of investigation by the Committee to determine if there is a legislative solution to this problem.
It has not escaped our attention that the political dynamics in Mexico hinder full cooperation between Mexico and the United States. The PRI currently controls the federal machinery of prosecution against corrupt state officials, yet all the governors currently under prosecution were elected as members of the PRI. Such potential conflicts of interest in Mexico adversely affect the ability of DOJ officials to fully pursue all prosecutorial avenues available to them when examining the “prestanombre” networks. The biggest concern we have is whether Mexican authorities are fully sharing evidence with their counterparts in the United States.
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