Probe locates $62mn held by Moreira family [account in Cayman Islands]
From Mexico News Daily
US Treasury Department investigation finds cash in offshore bank accounts
A United States Treasury Department investigation has located US $62.1 million held in offshore bank accounts by the wife and sister-in-law of ex-Coahuila governor Humberto Moreira.
The Reforma newspaper obtained access to a Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) file on the ex-governor that shows multi-million-dollar balances in accounts held in Monaco and the Cayman Islands between 2013 and 2016.
The accounts were in the names of Moreira’s wife Vanessa Guerrero and Cecilia Aguilar, wife of the ex-governor’s brother Iván.
The file reveals a series of suspicious financial transactions between family members, including dozens of dollar cash deposits to the Broadway Bank in San Antonio, Texas.
An account held by Guerrero at BNP Paribas Private Bank in Monaco reached a peak balance of $16.6 million in April 2016 after a $5.8 million transfer from an account at the Broadway Bank held by Ricardo Mendoza.
Mendoza is married to Elisa Moreira, sister of Humberto and current Coahuila governor Rubén Moreira.
The FinCEN file also shows that Guerrero was the holder of an account in the Cayman Islands with the CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank.
That account reached a maximum balance of $18.6 million in August 2013 after another deposit from a Broadway Bank account, this time US $6.4 million from an account held by Cuauhtémoc Esquivel, a Coahuila state education official.
Cecilia Aguilar also held an account with the FirstCaribbean International Bank, which had a balance of $27 million at the end of 2014 after she too was the beneficiary of a Broadway Bank deposit from Ricardo Mendoza to the tune of $5.4 million.
Humberto Moreira, who apart from serving as governor from 2005 to 2011, is also an ex-national leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). He had a brush with the law when he was arrested in Spain in January 2016 for suspected money laundering and embezzlement.
He was freed later the same month because of lack of evidence.
U.S. authorities continued to investigate the ex-leader, uncovering the transactions involving family members suspected to be related to money laundering in February 2016.
In September 2016 they had a small win when Vanessa Guerrero’s mother, Herminia Martínez, agreed to hand over a $600,000 residence in Texas to the U.S. government. The house was sold in February.
Source: Reforma (sp)
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