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You can read previous Rantburg articles on the Moreira debt scandal here, here, here,
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By Chris Covert
The disgraced former Coahuila state finance director at the center of a major financial scandal was caught at a small airstrip by Coahuila state judicial agents as he attempt to board a small aircraft bound for the United States Tuesday, according to Mexican news accounts.
Meanwhile, the Mexican national attorney general's office, Procuradoria General de la Republica (PGR) issued two new arrest warrants and has taken jurisdiction in the debt scandal in Coahuila.
Hector Javier Villarreal Hernandez was found at an airstrip at Plan de Guadelupe Monday at about 1600 hrs by Coahuila state judicial agents. Villareal had been ordered by a Coahuila state court Monday to appear by Tuesday to begin 40 days of incarceration as preventative detention.
A second preventative detention order had been issued Monday by judge Adrian Gonzalez for Sergio Ricardo Fuentes Flores, who like Villareal is charged with forgery and fraud.
Fuentes Flores failed to appear before the court, necessitating an arrest warrant issued for his arrest.
Fuentes Flores was director of Deuda Publica de Municipios y Entidades Federativas for the Coahuila state treasurer's office.
The Coahuila state attorney general's office, Fiscala General del Estado (FGE), Jesus Torres Charles, confirmed to the press Tuesday that his office has issued additional arrest warrants for three others including two unidentified Santander bank senior executives for their role in irregularities in contracting debt for the state of Coahuila.
Torres Charles also told press that the amount in question was MP $2 billion, instead of MP $3 billion, and that the transaction were two actual loans each from Santander and Banco de Baijo banks, not bonds. One of those loans went to the Coahuila state water department. The official heading that agency, Fausto Destenave Kuri, Monday requested a leave of absence from his duties. He has also been called before a state court to explain his actions.
On Tuesday, the Mexican federal Procuraduria Fiscal de la Federacion (PFF), a general counsel for the Ministry of Finance, filed two more complaints with the PGR alleging irregularities in five loans totalling MP $5.3 billion.
The banks included in the new request for investigation are Santander, Banco del Bajio and BBVA Bancomer. The issue became apparent last May when officials with Santander and Banco del Bajio attempted to collect on their loans and were told their transactions were based on false documents.
The amounts of the loans involved include:
- Banco del Bajio MP $1 billion.
- BBVA Bancomer: MP $1.65 billion.
- BBVA Bancomer MP $550 million.
- Santander MP $1.1 billion.
- Santander MP $1 billion.
An official with the PFF, Javier Laynez, said in an interview Wednesday that four of the five transactions took place during the term of then Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira Valdes, who is now leader of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Laynez also said his agency had been investigating the five transactions since May.
Moreira has been under considerable pressure both inside and outside the PRI to step aside while his role in expanding indebtedness for Coahuila while he was governor was being investigated. Moreira has thus far resisted those calls, countering that charges against him are a campaign of "mud and lies" perpetrated by his political opponents.
Gustavo Madero, like Moreira newly appointed to his post as leader of Partido Accion Nacional (PAN), has been putting Moreira's role in Coahuila's unprecedented run up of debt -- Mexico's fourth largest in absolute and largest in per capita terms -- front and center in the upcoming presidential elections next year.