Mexican Authorities Move to Cover Up Widespread Corruption in Immigration Agency

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO - MARCH 17: Asylum seekers cross an international bridge from Mexico
John Moore/Getty Images

Mexican officials are working to derail an investigation into corrupt immigration agents over fears that the case will implicate higher authorities in multiple agencies. The widespread corruption, which includes director-level figures  and politicians, is tied to the lucrative smuggling of migrants by working with cartels.

Breitbart Texas’s Mexican federal law enforcement sources revealed key intelligence information into the widespread corruption inside Mexico’s National Immigration Institute.

One of the key incidents under investigation by Mexican federal authorities is tied to several INM agents from Nuevo Leon who seized an SUV in that border state during a human smuggling case, only to give it back to smugglers tied to the Gulf Cartel. Officials recovered that same SUV a second time in the border state of Tamaulipas in January, where a group of police officers killed and incinerated 19 victims, including 16 Central American migrants. Since then, a Mexican federal judge had formally indicted nine INM officials, including a deputy director, on the charge of “crimes against justice.”

However, other top INM officials who are tied to the case and directly oversaw the incidents are curiously spared from indictment. Breitbart Texas spoke with Mexican federal law enforcement sources who revealed the charging of the nine is actually a cover-up of sorts known in Mexico as a “Carpetazo” or “closing the binder” to avoid exposing politically connected higher-ups.

One of the individuals being protected is Daniel Torres Cantu, the former regional head of INM in Nuevo Leon, who placed several members of his inner circle in the institution before leaving his post in October to make an unsuccessful bid for mayor in the city of Guadalupe in Nuevo Leon, representing the nationally ruling MORENA Party.

When Torres Cantu left his post, he left his right-hand man Jesus Gilberto Rodriguez in that position. According to the federal sources, Rodriguez continued taking orders from Torres Cantu after taking his job. Prior to taking that position, he was a federal congressman with Mexico’s Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI). As a result of the massacre, Rodriguez was fired from his position and was under investigation but neither of the two have been charged.

Information of the coverup comes as Mexico’s INM faces allegations of widespread corruption and close cooperation with cartels. In April, Breitbart Texas interviewed a woman from Honduras who recorded on her cell phone the moment when INM officials in Nuevo Laredo turned her over to the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas. The cartel forced the woman’s family to wire $2,800 USD for her release. The woman returned to her home country after Mexican authorities told her they could not guarantee her safety if she filed charges against the corrupt officials.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.     

Gerald “Tony” Aranda is an international journalist with more than 20 years of experience working in high-risk areas for print and broadcast news outlets investigating organized crime, corruption, and drug trafficking in the U.S. and Mexico.  In 2016, Gerald took up the pseudonym of “Tony” when he joined Breitbart Texas’ Cartel Chronicles project. Since then, he has come out of the shadows and become a contributing writer for Breitbart Texas.

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