Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in Mexico's Government and Military

Mexico vows purge after ex-defence chief arrested in US

Ex-minister Cienfuegos detained in Los Angeles over drugs

Published:  October 16, 2020 19:57

Reuters

  

Mexico's General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda speaks during an official reception in Mexico City April 24, 2014.

Cienfuegos was detained in Los Angeles over drugs on Thursday, October 15, 2020.

Image Credit: Reuters

Mexico City: Mexico’s president on Friday promised to clean up the armed forces but backed its current leadership after the arrest of a former defence minister on drugs charges in the United States.

The day after the stunning detention in Los Angeles of Salvador Cienfuegos, defence minister from 2012 to 2018, President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador pledged to suspend anyone inside his government implicated in the charges.

“We won’t cover up for anybody,” he said, before voicing fulsome support for Cienfuegos’ successor at the head of the army and his counterpart in the navy, noting that he had personally vetted them for honesty. “They are incorruptible,” he added at a news conference.

Right! 

Some Mexican officials were privately shocked at the detention of Cienfuegos in Los Angeles airport, worrying it was an unprecedented US intervention against a symbol of Mexican national security.

But Lopez Obrador quickly incorporated the arrest into his narrative that predecessors had presided over a debilitating increase in corruption in Mexico, which for years has been convulsed by often horrific levels of drug gang violence.

“If we’re not talking about a narco state, one can certainly talk about a narco government, and without doubt, about a government of mafiosi,” Lopez Obrador said.

“We’re cleaning up, purifying public life.” Lopez Obrador said he only heard about the arrest after the event, though he noted that Mexico’s ambassador to the United States, Martha Barcena, had informed him about two weeks ago that there was talk of an investigation involving Cienfuegos.

There had been no open probe in Mexico on Cienfuegos and his arrest was linked to the case against Genaro Garcia Luna, Mexico’s security minister from 2006-2012, who was detained by U.S. authorities last year on drugs charges, Lopez Obrador said.

Two Mexican federal sources told Reuters the investigation involved money laundering and drug trafficking.

Like Garcia Luna, Cienfuegos had been a major figure in Mexico’s drug war, which has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives over the past two decades.

The arrest comes less than three weeks before the US presidential election. President Donald Trump, seeking a second term, has made clamping down on drug cartels a priority, though without major progress since he took office in 2017.

Former Russian Minister Detained Over Massive Embezzlement, May Face 20 Years in Prison

Corruption is Everywhere - You Better Believe in Russian Politics

FILE PHOTO: Mikhail Abyzov © Sputnik / Iliya Pitalev

Former Russian minister, Nikolay Abyzov, who only left the cabinet last year, was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) over accusations of organizing a criminal group to embezzle 4 billion rubles (around $15.5 million).

The investigators believe Abyzov and his accomplices obtained the money by swindling the shareholders of two major energy companies in Russia’s Novosibirsk Region. The funds were then transferred abroad through offshore firms, which the ex-minister was a beneficial owner between 2011 and 2014.

The actions of the criminal group that Abyzov “organized and headed” have jeopardized the energy security and stable economic growth of several Russian Regions, the Investigative Committee said.

The probe against the 46-year-old is head by the top branch in the Investigative Committee, which only deals with high priority cases, with the assistance of the FSB.

Abyzov is charged with organizing a criminal group, with the offense carrying a prison term of up to 20 years, under Russian law. The investigators say they’ll ask the court to put him in custody.

A source told Interfax that the ex-minister was recently living abroad – in Italy and the US – and the FSB “operatives had to lure him to Russia.” He didn’t elaborate on how the detention happened.

The ex-ministers’ lawyer, Aleksandr Ansis, told the media that his client "categorically refuses to acknowledge his guilt."

Maybe it's just the translation, but that sure sounds like a curious way of stating his innocence.

Abyzov began his business career in the 1990s and occupied key positions in several of the country’s largest energy companies, including Unified Energy System of Russia and E4 Group. He’s one of the richest people in the country, with Forbes estimating his wealth at $600 million last year.

He joined the Russian government in 2012 under Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and maintained the ministerial post until May 2018. The man oversaw the functioning of the Open Government, a new approach which was introduced to make the Russian state more transparent and allow the authorities to discuss its initiatives with the society.

This just gets more hilarious by the line.

Vladimir Putin was informed of Abyzov’s case in advance, Kremlin press-secretary, Dmitry Peskov, said.

Medvedev’s office also said that the PM was aware of the situation, but pointed out that Abyzov is being investigated “for the activities that aren’t related to his work as a government member.”

Of course, no-one in the government would ever be guilty of corruption!!!