CIUDAD VICTORIA, Tamaulipas — A former Tamaulipas governor currently fighting extradition to Texas was charged with new crimes by a Mexican judge.
In a recent hearing in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas State Judge Patricio Lugo Jaramillo ruled there was enough evidence to charge former Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores with one count of illicit enrichment and one count of money laundering. Hernandez, who served from 2005 to 2010, remains in custody in Ciudad Victoria on embezzlement charges.
According to state authorities, Hernandez was accused of illegally earning close to $41 million pesos ($4 million USD) from 2000 to 2010; from the time when he was a senator, local mayor, and governor. State investigators claim the funds do not match the earnings he would have legally accrued for the period.
The former politician is wanted in Texas by U.S. authorities on several money laundering charges. He is accused of purchasing properties in the U.S. and laundering illicit funds consisting of embezzled cash and cartel bribes. Currently, Hernandez’s attorneys are fighting in Mexico to keep their client from extradition. The politician has been jailed since October 2017 when Tamaulipas authorities accused him of using straw purchasers for a large tract of government-owned waterfront property at only pay 1 percent of the land’s fair market value, Breitbart Texas reported at the time.
Hernandez is the second governor of Tamaulipas linked to organized crime by a U.S. prosecutor. Former Governor Tomas Yarrington is in U.S. custody awaiting trial on drug conspiracy and money laundering charges. Yarrington stands accused of collecting cartel bribes in exchange for helping criminal organizations like the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas operate in his jurisdiction. He is also believed to have helped the Beltran Leyva Cartel access the port of Veracruz.
Editor’s Note: Breitbart Texas traveled to the Mexican States of Tamaulipas, Coahuila, and Nuevo León to recruit citizen journalists willing to risk their lives and expose the cartels silencing their communities. The writers would face certain death at the hands of the various cartels that operate in those areas including the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas if a pseudonym were not used. Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles are published in both English and in their original Spanish. This article was written by “Francisco Morales” from Tamaulipas.