Progreso, Yucatán — A Yucatán company is under investigation for drug trafficking after they were found shipping narcotics in the carcasses of frozen sharks.
Santiago Nieto Castillo, head of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), made the announcement of the organized crime operation which he explained, used frozen shark carcasses to transport cocaine from Costa Rica to the port of Progreso and then a majority was forwarded to Jalisco, where it awaited its final destination.
Nieto Castillo added that the frozen sharks were also sent from Yucatán to Florida, “and is related from a series of companies that are used as facades to carry out operations,” he explained.
During a press conference, Nieto Castillo said that the leader of the organization has been identified as a 58-year-old person who corporately constitutes different companies with members of his family.
He says their investigation has revealed resources for 139 million peso through transfers, triangulating them with the other members of the financial group. Cash operations record deposits of 272 million peso and withdrawals in excess of 1.8 million peso in the state of Yucatán, while tax revenues declared were 2.65 million and deductions for 2.62 million.
“This also signals that it is a company that buys invoices in order to raise its expenses and reduce its percentage of payment to the treasury, to the Mexican treasury,” he explained.
Nieto Castillo reports that fiscally this company appears with zero peso in its 2014 statements. In 2015, only with eight peso, however, they received amounts of 5 million peso in transfers. For 2016, they declared 2,198 peso but received 18.7 million peso and withdrew 19.7 million.
In 2017, the phony company declared revenues of 3 billion peso and in 2018 for 1.9 billion peso without it being reported to the Tax Administration Service (SAT). Therefore, it is also considered a case of fraud of a fiscal nature regardless of political corruption, regardless of the peculate.
“We are in the money laundering scheme for drug trafficking plus tax fraud,” said the head of the Unidad de Inteligencia Financiera (UIF).
On the particular issue of drug trafficking, he says that joint efforts are in progress with the Ministry of the Navy and the Ministry of Communications and Transportation to carry out a cleansing at customs where some forms of irregularities have been detected.
This particular case has to do with a shark marketing operation, which is used by criminal groups, in addition to transporting drugs to the United States. He says they will continue to review Mexican ports and customs to detect any more type of illegal activities.
