The Punch.ng: Mexico probes $200M transfers tied to ex-security boss
Mexico said Friday it is investigating $200 million in suspicious government transfers to companies linked to its ex-public security minister, who was arrested earlier this month in the United States.The US accuses Genaro Garcia Luna, one of the architects of Mexico’s war on drug trafficking, of taking huge bribes from jailed kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s cartel to let it ship tons of drugs into the United States.
The head of Mexico’s financial investigations unit, Santiago Nieto, said his office had opened its own investigation after Garcia’s arrest in Texas on December 9, and uncovered millions of dollars in questionable government transfers made to a web of companies linked to his family. “In 2013, 2017 and 2018 there were payments of 2.6 billion pesos ($140 million) and $77 million to a company that made transfers to Israel, Latvia, Panama, China, the United States, Barbados and Curacao, among others,” Nieto told a news conference, speaking alongside leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador. “What’s interesting about this?
The Panamanian company that channeled the funds was owned by Garcia Luna’s family, and that company ended up funding Mr Garcia Luna’s lifestyle in Miami.” Garcia was public security
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