Unfreezing accounts of Cárdenas Palomino, an affront to justice: AMLO

Alonso Urrutia and Nestor Jimenez

Newspaper La Jornada
Friday February 10, 2023, p. 4

The head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), Pablo Gómez, revealed that a collegiate court confirmed an amparo that allows Luis Cárdenas Palomino, a former collaborator of Genaro García Luna, to release his accounts in the Mexican financial system, which were blocked as part of an investigation against him.

The decision is final and unassailable and thus opens the door to impunity in this type of case, said Gómez, because the complainant can not only access their accounts, but also reintegrate into the financial system.

At yesterday’s presidential conference, the head of the UIF reported that the ruling was issued on January 25 by the fifth collegiate court in administrative matters of the first circuit, made up of magistrates Jorge Antonio Cruz Ramos, president; María Elena Rosas López, and Pablo Domínguez Peregrina.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador maintained that this decision It is not just another bureaucratic process, it is an affront to justice, to the movement that seeks to end corruption and impunity. We are going to continue fighting these battles every day, because nothing has hurt Mexico more than dishonesty..

Cárdenas Palomino, now in prison and under trial for torture, reported to García Luna, first at the Federal Investigation Agency and later at the Public Security Secretariat.

Pablo Gómez indicated that decisions such as the one that favors the former police chief serve to validate illegal activities, protect not only criminals from organized crime, but especially corrupt, former public servants.

The resolution prevents the financial authorities from using one of the fundamental preventive instruments, which is precisely the blocking of accounts, he added.

Gómez explained that the UIF had blocked the accounts of Cárdenas Palomino, former director of Federal Security of the Federal Police, for 5.5 million pesos, allegedly linked to corruption schemes.

The measure led to a legal appeal against the FIU, which was based on a case law of the Supreme Court, promoted by the then minister Eduardo Medina Mora, recalled the official.

Pursuant to that jurisprudence, the action against Cárdenas Palomino as it is a purely national procedure and no foreign country is requesting it, therefore, it lacks sufficient certainty and legal certaintyadded Gomez.

Criterion malinchista of the court

The head of the FIU added that the government cannot remain silent in the face of this type of judicial decision, because it is not merely a matter of collaboration between powers. He considered that the criterion imposed by the SCJN is malinchista.

–Did Luis Cárdenas Palomino participate with Genaro García to get the money out of Mexico? -He was asked.

They did not operate in relation, they operated independently. But we do have a concrete financial relationship in one case. The most important company in Miami (linked to García Luna) and the most important company that Cárdenas Palomino operated had a financial relationship and Cárdenas Palomino received money from it, from Miami.

Gómez assured that there are even more serious practices in the Judiciary, because There are judges who have even gone so far as to prohibit financial intelligence information from being delivered to the Public Ministry. So the people who are being protected by these judges remain in a situation of total impunity, because in order to prosecute the crime of operations with resources of illicit origin, known as money laundering, a complaint from the FIU is necessarily required..

With the impediment of using data, legally obtained from the financial system, of politically exposed persons, above all, They can never be denounced, let alone accused of this crime. It is necessary to make adjustments to these criteria, because they are instruments of impunity that we must prevent.

He narrated that he recently sought out one of the SJCN ministers to manage with that body the possibility of reviewing the jurisprudence. “She presented my application in the Second Chamber, and they told me: ‘Yes, you have to attract him, but to further toughen the jurisprudence.’ So this minister said: ‘No, it’s not about that, it’s about making a review to overcome Medina Mora’s malinchista thesis’”.