Since last December 20, the federal Public Ministry has requested information from federal agencies regarding properties or data regarding the former head of the FIU, Santiago Nieto, and the Counselor Carla Astrid Humphrey to duly integrate the investigation file once morest him.
Mexico City, January 6 (However) .- The General Prosecutor of the Republic (FGR) leading Alejandro Gertz Manero has at least four investigation folders once morest Santiago Nieto Castillo, former head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, and the most recent investigation includes Electoral Councilor Carla Humphrey, wife of the former federal official, according to information obtained by But nevertheless.
The latest investigation folder is in the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Competition Control (FECOC) under the number FED/FECOC/UEIDCSOCAJ-CDMX/0002194/2021, in which the former head of the FIU and the current Counselor of the National Electoral Institute (INE), Carla Humphrey, are investigated following an anonymous complaint filed for alleged illicit enrichment.
On December 20, the FGR requested, through official letters, information regarding the couple’s homes from federal government agencies. The information to which you had access But nevertheless, details that the request on the assets of the former head of the FIU and the Counselor is to integrate a research portfolio.
Santiago Nieto Castillo was considered one of the trusted men of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, following assuming ownership in the FIU in December 2018, a position he resigned on November 8, 2021, two days following the controversy it generated. his wedding with Counselor Humphrey in Antigua Guatemala, which was attended by businessmen and senior officials, which was labeled a “scandalous affair” by López Obrador.
Almost a month later, at the beginning of last December, the newspaper Reform revealed that the Attorney General’s Office was investigating Nieto for alleged illicit enrichment, due to the fact that he accumulated four properties and a luxury car when he was in the FIU (2018-2021).
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The former head of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Santiago Nieto. Photo: Cuartoscuro.
However, that is not the only investigation once morest the former official.
According to sources directly involved in the investigation, the FGR, through the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes (FEDE), initiated a file once morest Nieto Castillo, who, when he was still head of the UIF, supported and offered his I publicly supported the then Morena candidate for governor of the state of Querétaro (Morena), Celia Maya García.
On April 21, in the middle of the ongoing electoral process, Nieto Castillo traveled to San Juan del Río, Querétaro, -where he is from- and accompanied the candidate for governor on a campaign tour, whom at some point Santiago Nieto himself showed interest.
I appreciate the valuable support of my great friend @SNietoCastillo, a national benchmark in the fight once morest corruption that we will implement in a frontal and unprecedented way in our state. pic.twitter.com/Ot6BuSPs7b
– Celia Maya (@CeliaMayaGar) April 10, 2021
Another of the complaints is the one presented in 2019 for allegedly having leaked information regarding the case of Emilio Lozoya when Nieto Castillo was in charge of Fepade.
Between 2017 and 2018, Emilio Lozoya denounced Nieto Castillo – who was spied on during Peña Nieto’s administration – before the then PGR for allegedly stealing private information from the Odebrecht case and sharing it on networks when he was an electoral prosecutor.
During his time as electoral prosecutor, Nieto disturbed power: he denounced the then Undersecretary of Prevention and Citizen Participation of the Ministry of the Interior, Arturo Escobar y Vega, for his alleged participation in electoral crimes. Escobar, very close to Manuel Velasco, would resign.
In 2017, he also denounced the mobilization of 70 buses to transport voters in the State of Mexico during the voting and later investigated the Deputy of Morena for Veracruz, Eva Cadena, for alleged money laundering. Later, he investigated the Odebrecht Case and that was what cost him his head. The then Attorney Alberto Elías Beltrán (in charge of the dispatch) was his executioner.
After being dismissed from his post as head of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes, from which he had been appointed on February 19, 2015, Nieto Castillo faced a wave of accusations for allegedly leaking information on the Odebrecht case, at least eight since 2017 as of June 2018.
In mid-January 2020, the newspaper Millennium reported that Nieto Castillo had been reported to the FGR for allegedly violating the principle of presumption of innocence. The newspaper reported at that time that the Andorran Silvestre Advocats office filed a complaint for its alleged responsibility in crimes committed by public servants and once morest the administration of justice.
Previously, on January 9 of that year, Prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero reproached in an international forum that the presumption of innocence was not respected by “units” of the Mexican federal government.
During his participation in the 2020 Meeting of Ambassadors and Consuls, the Prosecutor pointed out that “the Prosecutor’s Office as an autonomous body has been very respectful of the presumption of innocence, and it is good that you point this out, because there are units, not from the Prosecutor’s Office but of the Government, that they do not respect that presumption ”.
In fact, the same day that Reform announced the investigation once morest Santiago Nieto in the FGR for alleged illicit enrichment, the newspaper The universal published that the FIU was investigating the Prosecutor for the purchase of dozens of luxury vehicles and that it was also investigating millionaire transfers from a real estate company whose partner Gertz Manero. The publications were interpreted as part of a “cold war” and series of frictions that Gertz Manero and Santiago Nieto have maintained for a long time.
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The Prosecutor’s Office of Alejandro Gertz Manero, who has had friction with Nieto, has been investigating him since 2019. Photo: Daniel Augusto, Cuartoscuro.
The most recent investigation folder for alleged illicit enrichment is in full integration, according to the reports issued by the FGR to government agencies, and has to do with the acquisition of real estate, information revealed at the beginning of December by Reform.
According to the note made by the reporter Roberto Zamarripa, in December 2020, Santiago Nieto acquired a house in the Mayor’s Office Álvaro Obregón that he declared for 24 million pesos, but that allegedly the selling party received 28 million 500 thousand pesos for the operation , 19 percent more than the cost you claimed.
Likewise, the then official would have bought another property in Querétaro for one million 600 thousand pesos with an alleged loan granted by the Fovissste, as well as a department of Santa Fe, with a value of 8 million 200 thousand pesos, and a late model Audi car with a value of half a million pesos.
In this regard, Santiago Nieto has responded that he has “nothing to hide.” After the information of the investigation was leaked, the anti-corruption exzar acknowledged that his debts increased, but not his assets.
“The information on the joint credit that I obtained is public and my wife and I will be paying it for 20 years. Everything is declared before the SAT and before the SFP ”, he published on his social network.
There is nothing to hide. My debts increased, not my assets. The information on the pooled credit I obtained is public and my wife and I will be paying it back for 20 years. Everything is declared before the SAT and before the SFP.
– Santiago Nieto (@SNietoCastillo) December 6, 2021
In his Twitter account he published a letter in which the former official assured that said properties are declared in the Tax Administration Service (SAT), and were duly registered in the patrimonial declaration that he made before the Ministry of Public Function (SFP).
The properties, said Nieto Castillo, he acquired through mortgage loans with terms of 15 and 20 years, and that the mortgage on the house was divided equally between him and his wife, Carla Humphrey, counselor of the National Electoral Institute (INE).
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has defended the integrity of the former head of the FIU once morest the accusations of alleged illicit enrichment and has said that he believes the explanation he offered; however, he has also been in favor of it being investigated.
“What regarding Santiago to investigate if it corresponds to the Public Function, I think it would be convenient for him to formally clarify it and I think it was for credits, but since he was in office fighting corruption …”, said López Obrador regarding Nieto at the December 6 press conference.
