YARRINGTON SELLS LETY RADIO STATIONS, NEWSPAPER

Various Sources

Eve as former Tamaulipas Governor (and former Matamoros mayor) Tomas Yarrington remains under arrest and fighting extradition to the United States and Mexico to face organizes crime and money laundering charges, his family has been busy unloading some of his numerous assets.

Yarrington is under indictment in Brownsville, where federal authorities allege he laundered millions of dollars in bribe money from Mexico’s Gulf Cartel and its notorious spinoff, the Zetas. As part of the scheme, Yarrington and his associates laundered the bribes through real estate transactions across Texas, according to an indictment against him.

However, that hasn't stopped other elected officials from continuing to do business with his family. In the latest transaction, various Mexican periodicals say that former Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar and her former director of social development Luis Biasi inked a deal which transferred a chain of radio stations (Grupo Mi Radio) and one tabloid newspaper (El Expreso) for a multi-million dollar price tag (about $6.8 million).

The meeting where the sale was made allegedly took place in Safi Towers, a luxurious hotel in San Pedro, Nuevo Leon, on the outskirts of Monterrey. 

Salazar and Biasi have been linked to the murders of three U.S. citizens and one Mexican man after their paramilitary group – Grupo Hercules – kidnapped the three siblings and the Mexican national who were later found dumped in a desolate area on the side of the road. All four had been executed.

Their vehicles were later found in an impound lot owned by Biasi. So far, no charges have been filed against either official or any member of the Grupo Hercules.

The victims' mother has called on U.S. authorities to investigate the former Matamoros mayor for her and Biasi's roles in her childrens' deaths, but so far neither one has faced any charges in the homicides. During a Charro days festival two years ago, the mother held a banner calling Salazar an "asesina." 

U.S. prosecutors have publicly alleged since 2012 that Tomas Yarrington accepted millions of dollars in drug cartel bribes and invested it in Texas real estate. But Mexico didn't offer a reward for his capture until last November.

The current Tamaulipas governor, Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, said that Yarrington – who left office in 2005, and has faced charges since 2012 – still had a government-provided bodyguard assigned to him until late last year. The farcical nature of a policeman assigned to guard him while he was on the lam ended only because Garcia Cabeza de Vaca won the 2016 elections and belongs to the opposition National Action Party, or PAN, the party said in a statement Monday.

Yarrington's long-cold trail finally led to Italy, where he was detained in Florence. Alberto Elias Beltran, the chief Mexican prosecutor in charge of extraditions, said Yarrington was found carrying false documents suggesting he was living under a fake name. Elias Beltran said both Mexican and U.S. prosecutors had provided intelligence information that lead to the arrest and that both Mexico and the U.S. have requested Yarrington be extradited. Italy will decide which country he is sent to.

In a statement, the PRI praised the arrest, but acknowledged it had taken the party four years to expel him after the allegations first surfaced.

Yarrington is the first of a triumvirate of PRI fugitive governors accused of corruption to be arrested.

The other two are Cesar Duarte and Javier Duarte – no relation – the ex-governors of Chihuahua and Veracruz states, respectively. Both supposedly have international detention notices, but despite being very well-known and recognizable figures, no trace of them has been seen since they left office last year.

But few well-known politicians have been on the lam as long as Yarrington, who allegedly took bribes from the Gulf and Zetas cartels to allow them to operate in his state. In the ensuing years, the gangs essentially took over Tamaulipas, killing thousands of people, instituting a reign of terror of widespread kidnapping and extortion. The state was left littered with mass graves and burned-out homes.

Raul Benitez, a security expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said the key to catching Yarrington came when authorities traced phone calls he made to his family in Mexico.

Yarrington was arrested by Italian police after fingerprints revealed that he was indeed the fugitive ex-governor wanted for drug trafficking, money laundering and other charges by both Mexico and the U.S.

Italian authorities will decide where Yarrington will go in a process that could take one or two months and one that will be based on bilateral extradition treaties Italy has with both countries.

Manuel Montiel Govea, Yarrington's Public information Officer, reportedly was one of several people under whose name Yarrington hid his assets, including "Mi Radio" stations in  Nuevo Laredo, Miguel Alemán, Ciudad Mier, Matamoros, Tampico y Xalapa, Veracruz. Another "prestanombres" is said to be businessman Pedro Alfonso García who is the stated owner of newspapers La Razón in Tampico and El Expreso in Ciudad Victoria, Mante, and Matamoros, as well as the weeklies En Público, Educando, Texas and Tamaulipas, DeAGrapa and Tu Casa.

In Mexico, Yarrington faces a possible 20 years in prison but in the U.S. he could get more than 90.