Tomas Jesus Yarrington Ruvalcaba/Mexico/Organized Crime

Tomas Jesus Yarrington Ruvalcaba, a former Mexican state governor and one-time candidate for president, has been deported from the United States while he was serving a prison sentence in Illinois.

According to ICE, the former governor of Tamaulipas (1999-2005) is wanted in Mexico for organized crime and transactions with illegally obtained resources. Tamaulipas shares a border with Texas and includes Reynosa and Matamoros.

On March 25, 2021, Yarrington pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering in the United States District Court, Southern District of Texas and was sentenced to serve 108 months imprisonment.

Via ICE:

According to court documents, Yarrington accepted bribes from individuals and private companies in Mexico to do business with the state of Tamaulipas while he served as governor. Yarrington was in that position from 1999 to 2005. He was also an Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate for the president of Mexico in 2005. Yarrington used the bribery money he received while governor to purchase properties in the U.S. He had nominee buyers buy property in the U.S. to hide his ownership of the properties and the illegal bribery money used to purchase them. Yarrington laundered his illegally obtained bribe money in the United States by purchasing beachfront condominiums, large estates, commercial developments, airplanes and luxury vehicles.

The Brownsville Herald reports Yarrington “was also accused of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Gulf Cartel, which were delivered by state police in Mexico,” which allegedly occurred from 1998 to 2013. Federal prosecutors said he laundered between $3.5 and $9.5 million over a 14-year period. Charges including conspiracy to import cocaine and marijuana, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution were dismissed as part of a plea deal.

Yarrington was previously arrested in Florence, Italy in 2017, according to UPI.