It's a plot out of a movie: A man carries a suitcase of 25 million pesos to the airport to pay off a dubious company, but gets arrested by the federal police in the last moment.
That person was Vicente Benítez González, treasurer of the Veracruz government of PRI Governor Javier Duarte de Ochoa. The governor first sheepishly stated there was absolutely nothing wrong here; the secretary was merely carrying out payment to "Industria 3," responsible for arranging some upcoming festivals in the state.
Really? Since when has it become common to pay debts in cash, which is unsafe and moreover illegal? Yet Duarte and Secretary of Finance Tomás Ruiz still maintained this line that nothing was remotely wrong, and that the payment was simply in cash because the company urgently needed the money, for festivals weeks and months into the future.
As PRD intellectual and pre-candidate for Congress Fernando Belaunzarán,
put it in his blog,
Nothing adds up in this case, which goes against even the most elementary logic, Javier Duarte and Tomas Ruiz want to convince us that it was better and safer to send the money in a suitcase with one of his own rather than to type in the transfer in a computer. What a strange urgency that compels one to do everything more difficult! By the way, were they planning to spend the 25 million, including those of the festival 50 days later, during a weekend, or could they not wait until Monday?
After claiming everything was fully correct, governor Duarte then suddenly thought otherwise, and
sacked his treasurer.
Where was the money really going? For Duarte's own benefit? For Peña Nieto's campaign? We will likely not know, unfortunately, but what is clear is that if this had been a legitimate transaction, it would not have been attempted carried out in this mafia-like manner.
