February 11, 2012 in Nation/World

Mexican governor got drug cash, DEA says

Associated Press
 

MEXICO CITY – U.S. drug agents have evidence that cartel leaders paid millions to a Mexican border state governor and other figures in Mexico’s former ruling party in exchange for political influence, according to a court filing in Texas.

Confidential informants told Drug Enforcement Administration investigators that leaders of the Zetas and Gulf cartels made payments to Institutional Revolutionary Party members including Tomas Yarrington, who served as governor of Tamaulipas state in 1999-2004, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court in San Antonio.

The affidavit says the DEA also has obtained ledgers documenting millions of dollars in payments to Yarrington’s representatives.

Yarrington declined to comment when contacted by the Associated Press on Friday.

The U.S. investigation could have ramifications for Mexico’s July 1 presidential election. The candidate of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, has a strong lead in opinion polls and appears poised to retake the country’s most powerful office 12 years after the party was unseated after seven decades of unchallenged rule.

The 13-page affidavit lays out in detail the DEA’s case against Antonio Pena-Arguelles, an alleged cartel money-launderer who was arrested Wednesday in San Antonio.

It accuses him of using U.S. bank accounts to funnel millions to Yarrington from leaders of the Gulf and the Zetas.

© Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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Three comments on this story so far. Add yours!

  • DickAdams on February 11 at 7:08 a.m.

    And yet our U. S. Attorney General allowed weapons to be given to the Mexican drug thugs. I don`t think the governors being implicated taking funneled money comes as any surprise to anyone.

  • Coffee on February 11 at 11:09 a.m.

    How many cops, banker, lawyers, politicians in the good old USA are also sucking up this cash from drug dealers.
    By the way if you buy illegal drugs you contributed to the death of thousands of Mexican citizen. The next time y’all look into the mirror you are seeing a murder looking back.

  • greenlibertarian on February 11 at 2:30 p.m.

    Enormous sums of illicit cash cause political corruption?

    Wow, who EVER could have figured that would happen?

    The War on Drugs is an utter failure.

    Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international organization of criminal justice professionals who bear personal witness to the wasteful futility and harms of our current drug policies. Our experience on the front lines of the “war on drugs” has led us to call for a repeal of prohibition and its replacement with a tight system of legalized regulation, which will effectively cripple the violent cartels and street dealers who control the current illegal market.

    http://www.leap.cc/

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