FIU freezes Ovidio Guzmán's accounts; investigates El Mayo's sisters

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat  TY Gus  El Pais

"The investigation to Videgaray and Peña Nieto will happen,  we are not anyone's cover"

Santiago Nieto, head of the FIU of the Government of Mexico, revealed in an interview for the Spanish media El País that he has frozen bank accounts Ovidio Guzmán, who was arrested and released during the armed clashes in Culiacán on October 17, 2019, on called Culiacanazo .

From Pais interview :

Q. How is it possible that Ovidio Guzmán [El Chapo Guzmán's son] does not have an investigation open?

A. We have frozen Ovidio's accounts and 330 people linked to the cartel and we have filed the complaint with the Prosecutor's Office. 

We have also found peculiar things. Ismael El Mayo Zambada's sisters won millions of pesos in a casino. Nobody wins millions of pesos in a casino, so it seems to me a good indicator that we are in the presence of money laundering. It is also already denounced. I hope it is processed quickly.

“We have two super-national cartels and it is important to stop their operation, "he concluded.

Medina Mora with EPN was on the supreme court, he abruptly resigned

Q. Has the United States Government asked you for information about Genaro García Luna, the former Security Secretary of Felipe Calderón?

A. Yes, and we’ve already delivered it.

Q. What information was it?

A. Investigating [Eduardo] Medina Mora, what one of the North American agencies told us was "check the connection that existed at the beginning of the sexennial between both characters." Later they would clash but from Medina Mora we were led to García Luna. We found the recruitment network.

First, when they purchase the software of espionage for the Secretariat of Security that later remains in the company of García Luna.

Second, the constitution of Nunvav in Panama.

Third, the start of operations of this company in Mexico in 2011.

Fourth, the transactions, the 2,600 million pesos that the Ministry of the Interior of Peña Nieto gives to Nunvav.

The 31 million, they give to Black for a consultancy came from the Mexico City anti-kidnapping Prosecutor's Office and then the information on how the scheme that allowed the standard of living of García Luna in Miami was paid from Panama.

All of that information has been released to prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York.

Lozoya with EPN

Q: You have recently adjusted the number of alleged bribes that the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya received from 10 to 14 million dollars. Is the investigation still open?

A:  We have found transfers to accounts. Primero de Zacapan SA and Latin American Asia Capital Holding. Later, when these companies are closed, all resources are transferred to Tochos Holding Limited, the Swiss-based Lozoya company.

This is the one that distributes the resource to his sister and mother. There are different acquisitions: the 3.8 million acquisition of Altos Hornos de México. In fact, it is 16 million dollars that have to do with several Odebrecht companies.

They all end up making transfers to Panama, the Virgin Islands, Monaco. We are still investigating the shipyard in Galicia. 

Fertinal is also pending, we have not finished. Four complaints have been filed for tax evasion, embezzlement, bribery and money laundering of Emilio Lozoya and his environment, evidently including his wife.

Santiago Nieto (Mexico City, 1973) is one of the star officials of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador government. He has managed to put himself under the spotlight despite being in charge of a division that should have discretion as the main distinctive: the Financial Intelligence Unit (of the Ministry of Finance). This office, created during the Vicente Fox government (2000-2006), has never had so much weight until now, when Morena's anti-corruption agenda has been a stand out.

Nieto was an electoral prosecutor during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto, but he was struck down when he investigated the role of the construction company Odebrechtin the 2012 presidential campaign. The official today heads an apparatus that watches over the financial system for unusual movements that exceed $ 7,500.

In 2019 there were 9.8 million operations of this type. In Nieto's office, on the table, there is a thick folder on this matter. The block is made up of schemes that show the flow of money from different countries or tax havens that end in the accounts of governors, administration officials, businessmen and relatives of drug traffickers.