Mexican football again under suspicion: the Government investigates possible money laundering in clubs

[Inkriql]

The investigation of several Mexican soccer clubs of course money laundering is carried out with great tact and stealth by the scope of the case without it being possible to know the names of the teams so far, as confirmed by sources of the Ministry of Finance.

Having not been mentioned so far the name of the teams investigated, no club has made any reference and the world of Mexican football is absolutely silent.

The head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Secretary of the Treasury, Santiago Nieto, said that if the investigated cases were confirmed, the possible money laundering operations between clubs and sports promoters will be presented to the competent authorities.

Nieto said that the International Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommended that "activities vulnerable to sports clubs and promoters be included in the activity because they are vulnerable subjects to possible money laundering practices."

"The vulnerable activities of the Tax Administration System (SAT) have raised the possibility of being taken as an obligated subject, for vulnerable activities, precisely sports clubs and sports promoters," Nieto said Tuesday, according to the transcript of the statements disseminated this Wednesday by the Ministry of Finance.

He added that the FATF established a recommendation "to review possible money laundering operations related to promoters and sports clubs and, in fact, within the national risk assessment, we have detected the possibility that this is happening."

Nieto avoided providing more data by virtue of the stealth of the investigations, but "it is an international recommendation, which obliges us to be more careful in matters of sports clubs and promoters."

Three weeks ago, the National Institute of Transparency, Access to Information and Protection of Personal Data, a transparency body, ordered the Tax Administration System to announce the name of the clubs affiliated to the Mexican Football Federation (Femexfut) that have been benefited with the forgiveness of tax credits.

The INAI indicated that the information "must contain the amount of the conviction, the date", the fault that caused it and the reason why the sanction was waived for the period from January 1, 2007 to May 4, 2015.

The sale of the White Roosters of Querétaro in 2002 was recently linked to the money laundering network accused by lawyer Juan Collado, a fact that adds to the history of controversies ranging from payment debts to his players to purchase of other franchises to be able to stay in the First Division of Mexican football.

It was the businessman Sergio Hugo Bustamante Figueroa who in his appearances of June 20 and 25 before the Attorney General's Office, explained that José Antonio Rico Rico and Collado used credits granted by Libertad Servicios Financieros SA de CV to buy the Queretano team to Tirso Martínez, who is incarcerated in the United States because of his ties with the Sinaloa Cartel and with Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

Thus, the Querétaro appeared in the First Division after buying the franchise of the Reboceros de La Piedad, which was going through financial problems. This newly uncovered scandal adds to the list of vicissitudes and setbacks that have hovered around the feathered club, which used its hobby to live in uncertainty.