Arrest Warrant Issued Against Tamaulipas Governor Cabeza de Vaca, an Unprecedented Move in Mexico's History

"MX" and "Redlogarythm" for Borderland Beat

This is the first time in the history of Mexico that an arrest warrant is issued against an active governor. Please read the "Borderland Beat Analysis" section for a detailed overview of this and what may come next.

A State of Mexico federal judge issued an arrest warrant against the Governor of Tamaulipas, Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca, for money laundering charges. This legal action had never been done against an active governor, making it unprecedented in Mexican political history.

Cabeza de Vaca will become a fugitive from federal justice if he does not appear voluntarily before the judge based in a court of the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 1 ("Altiplano"), from where the arrest warrant was issued.

The head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), Santiago Nieto Castillo, also announced on Twitter that Cabeza de Vaca's bank accounts in Mexico were frozen. This motion was also extended to 12 other people and 25 companies linked to Cabeza de Vaca's money laundering scheme.

Mexican authorities also asked the National Institute of Migration (INM) to investigate whether Cabeza de Vaca was planning to leave Mexico. However, as reported by Borderland Beat, Cabeza de Vaca reportedly fled temporarily to McAllen, Texas, where he owns a home in a gated neighborhood.

Cabeza de Vaca, an outspoken critic of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), has denied the accusations and decried it as a political prosecution. The federal legislature and Tamaulipas state legislature have been in a standoff over whether Cabeza de Vaca can be prosecuted.

Federal lawmakers voted to lift his political immunity (Spanish: fuero) to move forward with his prosecution, but that decision was not accepted by the Tamaulipas state legislature.

Last week, Mexico's Supreme Court declined to get involved in the case. It appears to leave Cabeza de Vaca in a situation of retaining his immunity only while he remains within Tamaulipas.

Cabeza de Vaca has governed the state of Tamaulipas since 2016. Tamaulipas is the home turf of multiple drug cartels, including various Gulf Cartel (CDG) factions, the Northeast Cartel (CDN), and the Zetas Vieja Escuela (ZVE). Over the years, several journalists and political rivals have accused Cabeza de Vaca of having ties to Tamaulipas criminal groups.

Borderland Beat Analysis

As Borderland Beat has exposed in a recent series of investigative articles (see Part I and Part II), Cabeza de Vaca has a remarkably dark political career.

The case of Cabeza de Vaca is unique for the simple reason that he is the first Governor that has been legally prosecuted while in office. Although it is true that he has been almost removed from office, he is still the Governor of Tamaulipas since the Supreme Court did not remove his fuero. 

Recent examples of Governors such as César Duarte (from Chihuahua), Tomás Yarrington (from Tamaulipas) or Javier Duarte (from Veracruz) have been investigated, detained, and charged with several crimes, but always after they finished their mandates.

That had been almost an unbreakable rule in Mexico: Governors are untouchable until they finish their terms.

The wicked logic of Mexican politics, in which the electoral campaigns are negotiated with rival political groups and founded with assets belonging to criminal organizations, help create candidates and governors that behave as Viceroys, acting as the supreme authorities within the limits of their states.

During their 6-year terms, governors do and undo at their will, favoring certain criminal groups, creating greedy cliques of businessmen that are granted public contracts in exchange of kickbacks, and depleting public resources with multimillionaire scams that always left their states heavily indebted.

Picture of just one of the properties owned by Cabeza de Vaca in McAllen, Texas. Sources consulted by Borderland Beat confirmed that he left to the US a day before his fuero hearing. The house is located in an exclusive, gated community across from Bentsen Lake. Several relatives of his also own houses in the area (Source: Grupo Reforma).

But during these 6 years, governors were -- at least until this point -- untouchable. They did whatever they want knowing that no one would ever be able to prove anything. The impunity was limited in time and finished with the end of their term. Every Governor knows that they will have to be accountable once another individual has risen to power in the state.

At that point the alliances and cliques that had favored the ex-governor disappear into thin air as quickly as they were formed, changing political colors and looking for new political stars with which to earn more money through the access to public resources. At that point the once governor is left alone and has to fight for his own safety. 

If a governor's career was marked by nepotism, corruption, and rumors of criminal acts, the most common thing is to leave Mexico for other safer places where authorities tend to be very reluctant to use the extradition treaties signed with Mexico. Or where there is no extradition at all. These countries are where governors generally hid part of their ill gotten gains.

The unwritten rule in Mexican politics was that governors are protected from public backlash as well as from federal prosecution while in office. But the case of Cabeza de Vaca has broken this norm for the first time in the history of Mexico. An acting Governor had never been subject to an arrest warrant nor had his assets been frozen while in office.

Another McAllen property purchased by Cabeza de Vaca and given to his brother José Manuel. The UIF says that this was purchased with illegal money (Source: Grupo Reforma).

The most important question is, of course, why? Why has this been the first time a Governor was prosecuted while in office?

According to Cabeza de Vaca's National Action Party (PAN) and AMLO's opposition, it has been a matter of political strife. Cabeza de Vaca says has been targeted by the federal government for his radical opposition to AMLO's political project.

In fact, Cabeza de Vaca was one of the founders and main leaders of the Federalist Alliance (Alianza Federalista), a group integrated by 10 Governors, mainly of the PAN, Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Citizens' Movement (MC), and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) that opposed AMLO's initiatives and those of his party, National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).

We can thus infer that Cabeza de Vaca's role within the Federalist Alliance made him a political target for the federal government.

Nevertheless, this explanation is simplistic and does not explain why AMLO's administration has left other members of the Federalist Alliance untouched, especially governors from violent-torn states like Silvano Aureoles Conejo (from Michoacan) or Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo (from Guanajuato).

It is worth nothing that the Federalist Alliance was created in 2019, while the accusations against Cabeza de Vaca date back almost to his time as mayor of Reynosa in 2004.

In the end, the most probable reason for the toughness of the federal government against Cabeza de Vaca is a mixture of several points.

Another McAllen property owned by Cabeza de Vaca's brother Ismael, current senator in Mexico. The UIF also believes this property was purchased with illegal money. The property is described as a "mansion" made in Mediterranean-style architecture (Source: Grupo Reforma).

Firstly, undoubtedly, Cabeza de Vaca's frontal opposition to AMLO and his project. Secondly, Cabeza de Vaca's role as member of the PAN elite and his involvement in the Energy Reform of former President Enrique Peña Nieto. This was a giant legislative project in which the Governor played a major role and which was possible only through the payments of massive kickbacks through Mexico's state-owned oil company PEMEX. Thirdly, the remarkably long and murky list of events surrounding Cabeza de Vaca's political career, ranging from the killings and kidnapping of several of his associates to his links with organized crime groups in Tamaulipas, as well as the massive scandal of public contracts that were awarded to his family and clique.

Regarding the decision of the UIF against the governor, it is not clear if it will have any significant effect in the Governor's massive portfolio. We must remember that he has hired a US firm specialized in money laundering cases.

This, tied to the fact that Cabeza de Vaca has probably been aware of the incoming sanctions and arrest warrant by Mexican authorities, means that he could have moved his most liquid assets to the US, where he probably is residing now. In other words, the money he had in Mexican banks as well as the portable financial instruments he held in Mexican soil are now being kept in a Texan financial institution. 

Considering the information Borderland Beat has in hand, we are capable of stating that Cabeza de Vaca's personal assets located in Mexico were considerably illiquid, mainly in the form of real estate such as ranches, land, and private firms owned through front men. Most of his money was being kept in the US.

Property owned by the governor's mother María de Lourdes Cabeza De Vaca Wattenbarger, also in McAllen. The UIF has identified this property as illegally purchased as well (Source: Grupo Reforma).

This means it is highly improbable that the UIF sanctions will damage Cabeza de Vaca unless they are able to convince the US authorities to enforce them in their own territory. That would require either the intervention of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issuing their own sanctions or the application of the UIF mandates within the US banking system.

Since Cabeza de Vaca has hired a law firm specialized in these type of issues and may continue to have strong ties with certain Texan political elites, it would be difficult to see US authorities enforcing Mexican financial sanctions against an individual that until a few months ago was a trustworthy and firm ally in the fight against organized crime in the border region of Tamaulipas.

Sources: Proceso; La Jornada; El Economista; El Financiero