The FGR has granted 934 criteria of opportunity in this administration

Gustavo Castillo Garcia

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday, October 31, 2022, p. 5

So far this administration, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) has granted 934 opportunity criteria; that is to say, that the Federal Public Ministry has refrained from taking criminal action against those who have committed crimes. Among the beneficiaries are the former senior official of the Social Development Secretariat (Sedesol) Emilio Zebadúa González, involved in the diversion of more than 5 billion pesos in that agency, and Gildardo López Astudillo, Gilone of the leaders of United Warriors and pointed out as a participant in the disappearance of the 43 normalistas from Ayotzinapa.

Zebadúa is free. He provided information for which there is an arrest warrant for organized crime, which has not been executed, against Rosario Robles Berlanga, head of Sedesol and the Secretariat of Agrarian, Territorial and Urban Development during the government of Enrique Peña Nieto.

In the Iguala case, the FGR has granted the benefit to various members or those involved with United Warriorsincluding López Astudillo.

He was also received by a former police officer from Huitzuco, whose code name is Damienand who provided data that led to the identification of the municipal police officers of that place, which already led to the arrest of Rodolfo Nava Ortiz, an agent who participated in the attack on members of the Los Avispones soccer team, with balance Three dead and several injured.

Data obtained by the day Through a request for public information, they refer that in 2019, 272 criteria were granted, the largest number of benefits established in article 256 of the National Code of Federal Criminal Procedures. In 2020 there were 254; in 2021, 263, and from January to August of this year, 145.

Most of the criteria granted, 598 cases, are related to crimes established in the Federal Penal Code, according to the response of the FGR and information from federal officials.

The beneficiaries were allegedly responsible for integrating criminal organizations linked to drug trafficking and money laundering, which provided data with which it was possible to identify other defendants or provided evidence that strengthened investigations against regional leaders.

benefit requirements

These criteria are granted once the investigation has begun and prior analysis of the data contained therein, according to the regulation. Pursuant to the regulatory provisions of each prosecutor’s office, the Public Ministry may refrain from exercising criminal action based on the application of opportunity criteria, provided that, where appropriate, the damage caused to the victim or offended party has been repaired or guaranteed..

The law indicates that these criteria will be granted when it is a crime that does not have a custodial sentence, has an alternative penalty or has a custodial sentence whose maximum punishment is five years in prison, provided that the crime has not been committed with violence.

However, there are exceptions, such as the one established in the fifth section of the cited article: When the accused provides essential and effective information for the prosecution of a more serious crime than the one charged and undertakes to appear in court.

Thus, legal benefits have been granted to those involved in cases considered serious, as is the case with Zebadúa, against whom there is an arrest warrant as an alleged co-participant in the diversion of more than 5 billion pesos when Robles Berlanga was a member of the presidential cabinet.

Also, in this administration this benefit was granted to 187 people who violated various orderswithout specifying the type of crime committed, but according to ministerial officials they are environmental crimes, fraud and embezzlement, in which they repaired the damage.

There are 11 cases in which they received the benefit involved in electoral crimes, 10 investigated for violation of the National Law of Credit Institutions, seven more for violations of the Federal Law to Prevent and Punish Crimes Committed in the Matter of Hydrocarbons (huachicol) and 33 people who committed violations of the Federal Law on Firearms and Explosives.