Mexico City, March 3.- During the current administration (2019 to 2023), the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) of the Ministry of Finance has filed 217 complaints with the Attorney General's Office (FGR) related to operations with illicit proceeds related to crimes committed by politicians.
The volume of lawsuits filed in just over four years is six times higher than the 36 filed between 2004 and 2018 by the same UIF. According to information obtained through transparency, there were years in which the then Attorney General's Office (PGR) – now the FGR – brought virtually no money laundering cases involving politicians. Each lawsuit can involve more than one person.
Created in 2004 to bolster efforts to prevent and combat money laundering, in its first year, the UIF filed three complaints with the PGR for transactions involving illicit proceeds related to crimes committed by public officials. In 2005, it filed four more.
From then on, during the following nine years, which covered one year of Vicente Fox's administration, two years of Enrique Peña Nieto's administration, and the entire term of Felipe Calderón—who was responsible for the war on drug trafficking led by his Secretary of Public Security, Genaro García Luna, who is awaiting sentencing in the United States — the UIF filed a total of four complaints for alleged money laundering involving former officials.
According to the UIF, seven complaints were filed in 2015 involving former public officials, and 18 more were filed during the remainder of Enrique Peña Nieto's six-year term.
