Former Mexico governor pleads guilty in fraud case
The former governor of a Mexican border state who U.S. prosecutors alleged cut deals with drug cartels, took kickbacks from government contractors and laundered millions of dollars in Texas real estate pleaded guilty Thursday to a single count of money laundering.
Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, who was governor of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2005, initially faced up to life in prison if he’d been convicted of the racketeering or drug trafficking conspiracy charges the U.S. government leveled against him eight years ago.
A 53-page indictment federal prosecutors filed in Brownsville in 2013 accused Yarrington, 64, of not only taking bribes from the notorious Zetas drug cartel, whose turf wars wracked Tamaulipas and its border from Brownsville to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, but of actively participating in their drug trafficking enterprise.
Yarrington was accused of laundering money by purchasing homes across Texas and investing in real estate developments in San Antonio and South Padre Island.
During Thursday’s court hearing in Houston, prosecutors walked away from the drug trafficking allegations, dismissing the most serious charges and allowing the former governor to plead guilty to one money laundering conspiracy count.
Yarrington will face up to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced at a later date, but prosecutors said in court they’ll recommend a prison sentence of less than a year. Yarrington has been in detention since 2017 and will get credit for several years of time served. He also faces a fine and has agreed to give up a waterside residence in Port Isabel.
Yarrington admitted to using Texas real estate transactions to launder money from bribes paid while he was governor, but not to taking bribes from drug traffickers.
“Yarrington received illegal proceeds from individuals and private companies seeking business with the state of Tamaulipas,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Betancourt said in court. “These commercial bribes were made in exchange for favorable treatment by Yarrington and others for these individuals and companies through the award of contracts with the state of Tamaulipas.”
The money was transferred to the U.S., Betancourt said, where “Yarrington purchased assets in the state of Texas with these illegal proceeds using nominee names to hide his ownership.”
She said the amount of bribe money Yarrington is admitting to moving into the U.S. is between $3.5 million and $9.4 million. Prosecutors had initially said his money laundering scheme involved $23 million.
Among the real estate that prosecutors alleged Yarrington bought with the stolen money was 46 acres in San Antonio slated to be turned into a mixed-use development. That property was eventually sold, and $1 million was turned over to the U.S. The government also seized homes in Kyle and McAllen that prosecutors alleged he purchased through a nominee.
Yarrington, a charismatic figure in Mexican politics who was once viewed as a potential presidential candidate, spoke Spanish at Thursday’s hearing but occasionally broke into English to gently correct the interpreter.
Afterward, his attorney Chris Flood said prosecutors “obviously don’t believe that what others are saying about his involvement in the cartels is true.”
“Governor Yarrington’s happy to put this part of the case behind him,” Flood said.