Raúl Salinas de Gortari

For the mayor of Laredo, Texas, see Raul G. Salinas.

Raúl Salinas de Gortari (b. August or September, 1946) is a Mexican businessman who spent ten years in prison accussed of the murder of his brother-in-law.

He is the brother of former President of Mexico Carlos Salinas, and is best known for being convicted of masterminding the killing of José Francisco Ruiz Massieu, his former brother-in-law, although he was acquitted upon appeal in 2005.^{[citation needed]} His alleged money laundering of millions of dollars, involvement in the illegal drug trade, and playboy lifestyle make him one of Mexico's most villainized personalities.^{[citation needed]} His legendary corruption made him influential in the shift away from one party rule, as Mexicans looked for political reform that would eliminate the potential for similar abuses of power.^{[citation needed]}

Early life

As a child, Raúl was close to his younger brother Carlos, and the two did much together. They shared many experiences, including the execution-style killing of a twelve-year-old household maid with a .22 caliber rifle on December 17, 1951, when they were five and three years old, respectively. The killing was ruled an accident, and no one was charged. The two continued their strong relationship as they approached college, where Raúl studied engineering. When Carlos graduated from the UNAM, he dedicated his thesis not to his parents, but to Raúl.

Ruiz Massieu case

José Francisco Ruiz Massieu was a politician of emerging importance – he served as the general secretary of the ruling party during the term of Carlos Salinas, and was scheduled to become the Congress majority leader under the new administration. Daniel Aguilar, a semi-literate farm worker, shot Ruiz Massieu at 9:35 a.m. on September 28, 1994 in the middle of Mexico City. Ruiz Massieu died in a hospital an hour later. Aguilar was quickly captured and his confession led to the capture of a number of co-conspirators. The killing sent all of Mexico into an uproar.

To lead the investigation, President Salinas immediately selected Mario Ruiz Massieu, the brother of the victim and a justice official, he was the head prosecutor in the case. His investigation uncovered a massive conspiracy, by all appearances originating from the country's ruling political party. But when a key source in the investigation mysteriously disappeared, Mario Ruiz Massieu publicly accused the PRI of blocking his investigation on November 15, 1994. Following the statement, confidence in the party and in the government as a whole plummeted, both nationally and internationally, and $1.5 billion of foreign investment left the country on the following day. Mario Ruiz Massieu resigned officially on November 23, 1994.

But soon after, Mario Ruiz Massieu fled Mexico, and U.S. authorities found that he had deposited $7 million in a Texas bank. Suspicions that he was covering up the perpetrators of his brother's death rose as case's new chief prosecutor, Pablo Chapa Bezanilla, began interviewing family members of the deceased and was led to suspect Salinas. Salinas and José Ruiz Massieu had been bitter enemies, stemming back to Ruiz Massieu's divorce of Salinas's sister Adriana in 1978. Eventually, Chapa Bezanilla discovered that all mentions of Raúl Salinas had been eliminated from the testimonies of the captured conspirators. (In 1999, Mario Ruiz Massieu was found dead of an apparent overdose of antidepressants at his home in New Jersey, where he had been under house arrest. He had been scheduled to be arraigned in federal court in Texas on charges of money laundering.)

For president Ernesto Zedillo, this revelation was shocking, because Carlos Salinas had selected Zedillo to be his successor, and because Zedillo considered Carlos Salinas to be a mentor and friend. Facing the choice between preserving his relationship with the former president and protecting the law, Zedillo ordered the arrest of Raúl, arresting him on February 28, 1995. The move was unprecedented in the history of the PRI, in which presidents always protected their predecessors. Carlos Salinas immediately began publicly defending himself, claiming that his family was being slandered and accusing Zedillo of damaging Mexico's international image. However, the ensuing investigation continued to point to Raúl Salinas, and questions began arising about whether or not Carlos Salinas would have known about his brother's involvement.

On June 14, 2005 Raúl was acquitted of the murder of Ruiz Massieu and liberated with a posted bail of almost $3 million pending accusations of corruption-related crimes.

Alleged money laundering

In November, 1995, Raúl Salinas's wife, Paulina Castañón and his brother-in-law, Antonio Castañón were arrested in Geneva, Switzerland after attempting to withdraw $84 million USD from an account owned by Raúl under an alias. Their capture led to the unveiling of a vast fortune spread around the world and summing to hundreds of millions of dollars, even though he never officially received an annual income of more than $190,000. A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office indicated that Raúl Salinas transferred over $90 million out of Mexico and into private bank accounts in London and Switzerland, through a complex set of transactions between 1992 and 1994, all with the help of Citibank and its affiliates. In 2008, the government of Switzerland turned over $74 million, out of the $110 million in frozen bank accounts held by Raúl Salinas, to the government of Mexico. The Swiss Justice Ministry indicated that the Mexican government had demonstrated that $66 million of the funds had been misappropriated, and the funds, with interest, were returned to Mexico. The bank accounts were held at Pictet & Cie, Citibank Zurich, Julius Baer Bank, and Banque privée Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva and Zurich. Other funds were returned to third parties, including Mexican billionaire Carlos Peralta Quintero, who had given the funds to Raúl Salinas to set up an investment company. The Salinas family would not receive back any of the frozen funds.

On December 6, 2004, Enrique Salinas de Gortari, the brother of Raúl Salinas de Gortari, was found dead in his car after apparently having been beaten and strangled. Prosecutors said that Enrique Salinas had been sought for questioning by French police regarding his financial transactions with Raúl Salinas. However, investigators indicated that they thought the killing was a botched extortion attempt on him.

References

Oppenheimer, Andres. Bordering on Chaos. New York: Little, Brown, 1996. ISBN 0316650951

External links

• BBC news release
• BBC story about Salinas de Gortari's acquittal