Mexico City.– Héctor Villarreal, former Finance Secretary of the Government of Coahuila during the administration of Humberto Moreira, accused the former Secretary of Public Security Genaro García Luna of having paid 25 million pesos a month to El Universal so that it would not publish information against him.
Before the jury of the Eastern District Court of New York, he argued that the former governor of Coahuila Humberto Moreira (2005-2011) was the one who approached the former police commander with the owner of El Universal, Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz, because they are compadres.
The witness, who was Finance Secretary during the Moreira administration, assured that he accompanied Sergio Montaño (former SSP Major) to make the first payment, which was made in cash at the newspaper’s offices.
With funds from the Government of Coahuila
On one occasion, Villarreal said, Montaño asked the ex-governor to cover a pending payment and he did it with state funds.
At the hearing, an invoice for 11.5 million pesos issued by El Universal in 2009 to the Government of Coahuila for an alleged tourist advertising campaign was shown.
The former state official explained that this type of payment was not recorded in the official accounting of the State Government, although it did keep track of the expenditures.
Villarreal said that he met García Luna in 2008 during a visit he and Moreira made to the federal police facilities, where the former police commander showed them Pegasus, an Israeli spyware, and tried to sell it to them, but the then-governor did not agree. interested.
