Former Governor Of Mexico's Most Violent Border State Charged With Money Laundering in Texas

Texas unsealed a five-page criminal indictment against Mexican politician Eugenio Hernández, former governor of the border state of Tamaulipas, one of Mexico’s most violent states. Hernández is affiliated with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s PRI party. Hernández, along with his brother-in-law Oscar Gómez Guerra, was charged on Friday with conspiracy to engage in a money laundering scheme aimed at hiding bribes paid by cartel leaders who are known to bribe politicians in Tamaulipas in return for being allowed to freely carry out their criminal activities. The indictment seeks the forfeiture of three properties in McAllen and one in Austin with a total value of nearly $5 million. It also seeks a judgment of $30 million against Hernández and his brother-in-law. In a telephone interview Saturday with the Mexican daily Reforma, Hernández stated that his real estate properties in the U.S. “are completely legal.” Hernández, 56, said that before becoming a politician he saved $4 million in a U.S. bank account earned in a 25 year career in the construction industry. The San Antonio Express News reported that Hernández had been under the microscope since 2014 when his name turned up in money laundering investigations in Texas. In particular, he was singled out by prosecutors in the case of Mexican businessman Guillermo Flores Cordero, who was arrested in mid 2013. In Flores’ plea hearing, prosecutors said Hernández had been identified by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as receiving bribes from the Zetas drug cartel, the daily reported. Considered Mexico’s most violent criminal group, the Zetas Cartel is currently waging a bloody war against the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas. Hernández is the second former Tamaulipas governor to be indicted in Texas. Tomás Yarrington, Hernández’s predecessor, was charged with racketeering and money laundering in late 2013. Yarrington allegedly took large bribes from drug trafficking groups in Tamaulipas, including the Gulf Cartel, in return for letting them operate freely during his administration (1999-2004). Yarrington, who denies the charges, remains a fugitive...more