Mexican federal prosecutors and investigators are misleading the public by claiming that the U.S. Department of Justice is collaborating to target a border state governor, said a U.S.-based attorney representing the politician in question.
As Breitbart Texas reported this week, Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office announced they received information from the U.S. Department of Justice about possible criminal investigations into Cabeza de Vaca and his family.
According to Texas attorney J.A. “Tony” Canales, the information being portrayed by Mexican authorities as proof his client is facing criminal charges is erroneous and being used to mislead the public. Canales claimed Mexican prosecutors are using the case as a political tool and are denying his client access to the information at issue. In a prepared statement to Breitbart Texas, Canales said he personally verified with U.S. courts, Texas courts, and various law enforcement agencies that his client has no pending domestic criminal matters.
Canales claimed that some of the information already made public by a rival political party and comes from “public press articles containing only hearsay and rumors based on altered Department of State wires and FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network) reports.”
Those documents that Canales claims to be forged first surfaced in October 2020, when Alejandro Rojas Diaz, from the MORENA party, posted them on social media. The documents are portrayed as leaked cables from the U.S. Department of State showing concerns by U.S. officials that Cabeza de Vaca had ties to cartels. Rojas Diaz then filed a complaint with the FGR against Cabeza in August 2020.
In a letter written by Cabeza de Vaca late last month to John J. Creamer, the Charge D’Affaieres of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, the border state politician asked for an investigation into the “forged” documents and, if needed, for the case to be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice. Cabeza de Vaca also asked for the Department of State to provide an official response as to the authenticity of the documents. In the letter, Cabeza de Vaca claimed he had those cables analyzed by former U.S. diplomats who pointed out glaring grammatical errors and other inconsistencies in the “poorly doctored forgeries.”
U.S. Embassy Letter by ildefonso ortiz on Scribd
David Gerger of Gerger, Hennessy & McEarlane, another law firm representing Cabeza de Vaca, sent a letter last month to Michael Mosier, the Acting Director of the U.S. Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) about the leaking of confidential financial information by Mexican authorities to press. According to the law firm, Mexican authorities are using SARs or Suspicious Activity Reports and misrepresenting them as evidence of their client’s wrongdoing. According to the law firm, an SAR is a “transactional report generated by U.S. financial institutions as part of their internal governance” and does not necessarily mean there is any illegal activity–or there are active U.S. investigations and for that reason are confidential as to not affect innocent individuals. In their letter, the law firm quotes two Mexican news outlets which published information from SARs about Cabeza de Vaca and sourced the information to Mexican law enforcement (Financial Crimes Unit-UIF) and FinCEN.
FinCen Letter From Attorney by ildefonso ortiz on Scribd
Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com.
Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.