The former administrative director of Mexican Food Safety (Segalmex) is accused of the illegal purchase of stock securities worth 700 million pesos.
René Gavira Segreste, former director of the Administration and Finance Unit of Mexican Food Security (Segalmex), will be confined in Mexico City’s Reclusorio Norte for the crime of embezzlement from that institution worth 700 million pesos (around 42 million USD).
During a hearing in the courts of the Reclusorio Norte, Judge Gerardo Genaro Alarcón issued justified preventive detention against Gavira Segreste, considering that there is a risk of escape.
Since April of last year, Gavira had already been linked to proceedings for illicit use of powers and powers for the alleged illegal purchase of stock securities for 700 million pesos with Liconsa money.
At that time he was allowed to carry out his trial in freedom, but since March 2023 he stopped going to sign before the authorities. That led the judge to determine that there was a risk of him fleeing again.
On Thursday, December 7th, the former official surrendered to the authorities at the facilities of the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (FEMDO), after being a fugitive from justice for nine months. He said he was willing to submit to the corresponding criminal process.
Agents of the Federal Ministerial Police completed the first of six arrest warrants against Gavira. All of them are related to the embezzlement caused by Segalmex, Diconsa, and Liconsa.
This arrest warrant is for the case of 700 million pesos of Liconsa’s assets since it allegedly authorized the illegal purchase of high-risk stock securities in a Multiple Purpose Financial Company (SOFOM), which was neither regulated nor supervised. by the Ministry of Finance.
Segalmex Case
René Gavira is accused of organized crime and money laundering for his relationship with the alleged use of 800 million pesos (about 46 million dollars) from Segalmex, for the illegal purchase of stock securities on the Mexican Stock Exchange (BMV), as well as for the diversion of 142.5 million pesos (about 8 million dollars) to acquire a shipment of sugar that was not delivered in full.
In April 2022, the FGR linked him to the process alleging that “he presumably authorized the purchase of 100 thousand stock securities with a total value of 100 million pesos (about 5 million dollars), using public resources from the assets of Segalmex for this purpose”, through a Brokerage House”.
The scandal worsened in March when the FGR reported 22 arrest warrants linked to organized crime crimes, operations with resources of illicit origin, and embezzlement for “illegal contracts and illicit payments.”
In the investigations, networks of ghost companies and overpriced acquisition of inputs such as sugar that Segalmex never used, an organization created by López Obrador to “rescue the countryside” with support for small producers, seek “food self-sufficiency”, distribute basic foodstuffs, have been reported. and guarantee prices.
For this reason, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador celebrated this Friday that Gavira had turned himself in and reiterated that he will seek to get to the bottom of the matter by ensuring that he does not establish “relations of complicity with anyone.”
López Obrador stressed that this case “is very important to him” because it is the “only” case of corruption that his Administration has had, which is why he wants to clarify it before the end of his term.
TYT Newsroom