The organization Antorcha Campesina is investigated by the FIU for money laundering and corruption
The Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) suspended the bank accounts of the leaders of Peasant Torch in Puebla, for an alleged handling of cash illegal.
This was revealed this Monday Santiago Nieto Castillo, holder of the unit dependent on the Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP).
As the investigations are ongoing, he did not specify the names or the number of leaders from whom the resources were withheld.
In interview at National Palace he only pointed out that the “freezing” of the accounts was carried out in conjunction with the State Attorney General (FGE) de Puebla.
He briefly announced that the accounts of the organization’s leaders were also suspended in the Mexico state, same with the help of the prosecution of that state.
The former head of Fepade pointed out that the suspension is due to the fact that the group linked to the PRI would have received cash “outside the law.”
“We did the freezing of accounts in a joint effort with the Prosecutor’s Office of Puebla and the State of Mexico of leaders of Antorcha Campesina, this organization that outside the law had received cash resources,” he said.
FIU accuses laundering and corruption
The suspension of the accounts is in addition to the two complaints that Antorcha faces in the General Prosecutor of the Republic (FGR) for alleged money laundering and acts of corruption.
Both complaints were also filed by the FIU in April, as part of the “National Plan Against Fuel Theft”.
According to Nieto Castillo, in different parts of the country, 40 gas stations property of Antorcha with irregularities in its operations.
The investigations began last year, and it was detected that the profits reported by the torchista gas stations were greater than the amount of gasoline they bought from Pemex.
Torch blames Barbosa
In a press release, Antorcha responded to Nieto Castillo’s statements with a statement from Brazil Acosta Peña, federal deputy for the PRI and member of the National Antorchista Executive Committee.
In his statement he accused that the alleged suspension of bank accounts is about “media attacks and political repression ”orchestrated by the governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta.
This by pointing out that the FIU has not presented evidence of the “freeze” or of the investigations, in addition to not respecting the presumption of innocence.
“It is clear that the federal agency is lending itself to the political revenge of the Puebla governor Miguel Barbosa against those who question him for his terrible government and seeks to arbitrarily block the financing legal status of the organization that has become its main opponent in the entity ”, he denounced.
The multi-member legislator affirmed that there is nothing illegal in the activities of the torchists, but that the governments seek to “fabricate” crimes.
“The official information on this subject, concise and without any proof, makes it clear that the objective is to confuse Mexicans about the origin of the financing of our organization, despite the fact that said activity is public, legal and subject to the control of the authorities for 46 years that we were born as an organized group. There is nothing to pursue, we are a group of Mexicans who generate resources for their social and political activity; there is nothing illegal or immoral in Antorcha’s financial work, unless the rulers fabricate crimes as in the worst political times in this country, ”he said.
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