Three officials from the San Luis Potosí State pension fund and four individuals have been arrested on charges of embezzlement of pension funds and abuse of public office.
The office of the attorney general of the Mexican State of San Luís Potosí has announced the arrest of seven people, including three officials from the pensions department, for a fraud that could amount to 700 million pesos, nearly 41 million dollars.
Attorney General José Luis Contreras explained that “a complaint was filed in November 2023 by the agency’s former directors and we discovered, after investigation, that these embezzlements were carried out from 2020 to 2023.”
“All of this stems from a scheme implemented by pension fund management staff, in collusion with staff from a banking institution, who used false documents, making the pension director himself believe that he had a balance of over 700 million pesos in his bank accounts when in reality he only had 6 million pesos,” he added.
The money came mainly from deductions made from beneficiaries. The detainees have been charged with abuse of public office, with a potential prison sentence of 2 to 12 years, and embezzlement, with a sentence from 5 to 15 years imprisonment.
No link with organized crime
José Luis Contreras said that the prosecutor’s office opened other investigative files but added that, so far, there was no information to indicate that the siphoning off was linked to organized crime.
Ricardo Gallardo, Governor of the State of San Luis Potosi, declared: “What will be demanded is reparation and restitution of the money stolen from the pension funds.”
This is not the first story of embezzlement of public funds in Mexico. A few months ago, Mexican authorities arrested former top security official Genaro Garcia Luna for embezzling up to 745.9 million dollars from government technology contracts.
Pablo Gómez, head of Mexico’s anti-money laundering unit, said at the time that Garcia Luna and his associates had set up companies that won 30 dubious government contracts while he was Mexico’s top security official between 2006 and 2012 and for six years thereafter.
