REUTERS

TEXAS US PROSECUTORS on Tuesday moved to seize millions of dollars’ worth of real estate in Texas that a former governor of a Mexican state is accused of buying with payments from drug cartels and from criminal extortion and bribery schemes.

Tomas Yarrington, the former governor of Tamaulipas, Mexico, was not charged criminally but two civil lawsuits were brought against him in US federal court. He is accused of ‘using his illicit income from his political years to become a major real estate investor’ in the United States and launder millions of dollars in proceeds from drug trafficking activities.

One of the properties was a condo in the resort community of South Padre Island, at the southern tip of Texas, and the other was a larger site in San Antonio, prosecutors said.

“We remain steadfast in our commitment in targeting not only the drug cartels, but those who allegedly provide support and service to them,” Kenneth Magidson, US Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said in announcing the indictment.

Yarrington was governor from 1999 to 2005 of Tamaulipas, which is located across the Rio Grande from Texas and is a hotbed of violent narcotics trafficking.