Gustavo Castillo Garcia
Newspaper La Jornada
Friday March 10, 2023, p. 8
The Specialized Prosecutor for Organized Crime (Femdo) obtained arrest warrants against 22 people linked to the diversion of resources in the decentralized organization Mexican Food Safety (Segalmex), for the alleged purchase of more than 7,000 tons of sugar.
The accusations against former Segalmex officials and directors of the Servicios Integrales Carregín company are for organized crime, operations with resources of illicit origin and embezzlement.
Reports from the Superior Audit Office of the Federation (ASF) state that the embezzlements committed between 2019 and 2020 against Segalmex, when its director was Ignacio Ovalle Fernández, amount to more than 10 billion pesos.
So far in no file there are responsibilities established against the former director of the organization.
The Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) pointed out that the case of the alleged purchase of sugar is the sixth that it prosecutes from four investigative files on the embezzlement of Segalmex.
There are more folders that will be prosecuted soon, regarding other multimillion-dollar embezzlement cases, against said institution of the Mexican State
he added.
Segalmex is part of the sector headed by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
sugar that did not arrive
The federal Public Ministry maintains that the 22 defendants were responsible for a purchase of more than 25,000 tons of sugar that Diconsa, Segalmex’s distribution arm, intended to make from Carregín.
For this operation, the parties signed a contract in 2020 for 465 million pesos, but there were breaches in the delivery of the product.
The investigation of the case became a criminal case, for which the defendants will not have the right to bail.
According to the investigations, there was a simulated delivery of 7,800 tons with a total price of 145 million pesos, but it was never proven that the product had been made available to Diconsa.
The FGR initiated almost 30 investigation folders for diversion of resources in Segalmex for close to 10 billion pesos, according to a scoop the day.
This newspaper also revealed at the time that the inquiries began at the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Corruption (FECC), headed by María de la Luz Mijangos Borja. Then they accumulated in the Femdo, in charge of Alfredo Higuera Bernal.
The defendants
The FGR reported yesterday that of the 22 defendants, 12 were Segalmex public servants, four belong to colluding companies and six more benefited from the diversions.
According to records of the Federal Judiciary, the main former official named in this case is René Gavira Segreste, former head of Segalmex’s Administration and Finance Unit.
Gavira is already facing two more criminal proceedings for fraud against public finances, for more than 4 billion pesos. He is accused of illegal use of powers and faculties in the modality in which a public servant illegally authorizes economic operations.
The investigation indicated that in 2019 the former official authorized the investment of more than 850 million pesos of the Segalmex budget in stock market values.
In the recorded file, the Femdo pointed out that All this group of alleged perpetrators of the crimes mentioned, entered into illegal contracts and illegal payments for the amount of 142 million 440 thousand 883 pesos, for an alleged acquisition of 7 thousand 840 tons of sugar, which would be used for the benefit of the population of the country. and those who could never prove that they had legally delivered them to said state company
.
For this reason, he points out Manuel Lozano Jiménez, former commercial director of Liconsa, producer and marketer of Segalmex, as part of a network of complicity; Hugo Armando Rosas Medina, former deputy manager of the Querétaro operating unit; Carlos Antonio Dávila Amerena, former director of legal affairs and José Rafael Domínguez Ortiz, former deputy director of general treasury.
Also accused are Jesús Morales Garza, former manager in the commercial department in charge of contracting grains and sugar, and Roberto Rivera Ramos, former assistant manager in the commercial department and in charge of programming acquisitions.
According to the consignment document, the partners of Carregín Javier Adán Tinoco, legal representative, and the shareholders Ivannna Pomar and Saúl Romero, were accused of participating in the diversion of resources.
