Gustavo Castillo
The newspaper La Jornada
Monday, August 19, 2024, p. 11
The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) obtained an arrest warrant for organized crime and operations with illicit proceeds against René Gavira Martínez, son of René Gavira Segreste, former head of Administration and Finance of Mexican Food Security (Segalmex).
Ministry sources revealed that the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, attached to the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (Femdo), also requested the intervention of Interpol and the issuance of a red notice so that he can be located and arrested.
He is the first relative of René Gavira Segreste – who is already facing five criminal proceedings – to be formally charged before a district judge based in Almoloya de Juárez, State of Mexico, for having benefited from the embezzlement of funds that took place between 2019 and 2020 by Segalmex, in which the Superior Audit Office of the Federation (ASF) detected an embezzlement of more than 12 billion pesos.
Based on the complaint filed by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), the FGR is investigating the financial operations carried out and the growth of the assets of the former official’s wife, Emma Martínez, and their children Kevin Iván Gavira Martínez and René Gavira Martínez, who is already considered a fugitive from justice.
The sources consulted indicated that the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office obtained elements that would prove the participation of René Gavira Martínez in fraudulent operations, in this case through the companies Maregafe Holdings and Gavmaem Inc., in which the former head of Administration and Finance of Security of Segalmex was appointed president of the companies and his relatives, part of the Board of Directors.
Through these, Vilma Cristina Herrera Reza, sister of Carlos Ernesto Herrera Reza, simulated the sale of an apartment in the Luxury Condominiums complex, in San Antonio, Texas, United States, worth more than 700 thousand dollars, and which was sold, in another operation considered illegal by the Mexican authorities, last May.
Carlos Herrera Reza, owner of Comercializadora de Productos Lácteos de la Laguna (Coprolac) and partner in Chilchota, became a collaborating witness for Femdo and provided information that links René Gavira Martínez as part of a scheme to conceal resources and assets generated from the percentages demanded by Gavira Segreste and Manuel Lozano Jiménez, former commercial director of the company Diconsa, in exchange for the awarding of contracts and, in this case, Coprolac was the beneficiary of awards worth more than 1.2 billion pesos.
Manuel Lozano Jiménez was arrested in Argentina on May 28, 2023 and is subject to extradition proceedings to be handed over to the Mexican justice system.
As reported The Day In May 2023, FGR investigations established that two of the main companies benefiting from contracts for the purchase and production of powdered milk and its derivatives were Coprolac and Grupo Vicente Suárez 73, which used at least 12 micro-enterprises and personal accounts of shareholders to disperse more than 400 million pesos obtained from the simulated sale of dairy products to Segalmex.
In criminal case 111/2023, it is mentioned that Liconsa delivered 243 million 752 thousand 538 pesos to Coprolac for the production of powdered milk and 140 million 779 thousand 841 pesos to Grupo Vicente Suárez 73, plus another 50 million pesos for the processing of cream, without the companies proving that they had delivered the goods to the state-owned company.
In that case, it was noted that among the individuals who, according to the FGR records, received money illegally are Carlos Ernesto Herrera Reza (5 million pesos), Juan Carlos Burillo (7 million pesos) and Óscar Iván Medina González (32 million 242 thousand pesos).
Likewise, it was detected that René Gavira Martínez is related to the operations carried out by Grupo Vicente Suárez 73, since in the public accounts corresponding to 2019 and 2020 the ASF documented irregularities in the allocation of contracts and the delivery of goods and services in Segalmex for almost 4 billion pesos to that company headed by Alejandro Puente Córdoba, who died in March of this year.
