By Drazen Jorgic<\/p>\n
CUERNAVACA, Mexico Feb 3 (Reuters) – It was supposed to be a festive occasion. Regional politicians, officials and military officers gathered in the Morelos state capital of Cuernavaca for breakfast in February 2022 to mark Mexico\u00b4s annual Army day.Cuauht\u00e9moc Blanco, a former Mexican soccer star and the state\u00b4s governor, celebrated with red wine. But he wasn\u00b4t happy.<\/p>\n
Among those in attendance was state Attorney General Uriel Carmona – who had recently been asked by state legislators to investigate the governor\u00b4s suspected ties to drug traffickers.As Carmona moved to shake Blanco\u00b4s hand and EVdEn EVE naKLiyaT<\/a> bid him goodbye, the attorney general alleges, the governor grabbed his arm. Blanco said he\u00b4d been tipped off that another prosecutor was sniffing around his eldest son\u00b4s financial accounts.<\/p>\n A line had been crossed, the barrel-chested Blanco said, and warned: “Now I\u00b4m going to mess with your families, and I\u00b4m not going to hold back.”<\/p>\n Carmona told the governor that he was leveling threats against law enforcement – a potential felony.He described the encounter in a criminal complaint, viewed by Reuters, filed two days later against Blanco with an independent state anti-corruption prosecutorial body.<\/p>\n The breakfast confrontation and the criminal complaint, EvdEN evE nakLiYAt<\/a> which haven\u00b4t been previously reported, add to a cloud of scandal over one of Mexico\u00b4s most famous men – a legend on the soccer pitch, EvdeN EVe naKliYat<\/a> working-class hero and a rising star in politics.<\/p>\n The dust-up came just six weeks after Mexican newspaper El Sol de M\u00e9xico published a photo of the governor posing with three alleged drug traffickers in Morelos. The headline on that front-page photo: “Blanco met with narco leaders in Morelos.” The newspaper said the photo was found on the phone of a drug trafficker arrested by the military in November 2021.<\/p>\n The news outlet did not explain how it obtained the photo, and it\u00b4s not clear who shot it.<\/p>\n Mexican drug lords have a long tradition of buying off politicians in exchange for government protection of their illicit trade. The bombshell photo is what prompted state lawmakers to demand the investigation into Blanco in complaints filed with state and federal authorities in January 2022.One of the men in the undated image was Homero Figueroa, the purported leader of the Comando Tlahuica crime group. Another, Raymundo Castro, the alleged boss of the Guerreros Unidos cartel in Morelos, had been on the run from authorities since 2014. Reuters confirmed their identities with six law enforcement officials.<\/p>\n In an interview with Reuters, Blanco said Attorney General Carmona, who was appointed by the governor’s predecessor, is a tool of his political enemies.He denied making death threats – or drinking wine at the breakfast.<\/p>\n “I\u00b4m not a drug trafficker,” Blanco said in Cuernavaca\u00b4s colonial-era government palace building. As for the alleged warning to Carmona, he said: “I\u00b4m not so crazy or deranged as to threaten his family.”<\/p>\n Blanco also denied knowing the trio in the photo and dismissed the picture as a routine snap with strangers at a public gathering.That assertion is not credible, two prosecutors and a third source in the state attorney general\u00b4s office told Reuters. They said the encounter captured in the photo occurred in a small room of a church complex near Cuernavaca capable of holding about ten people. Rival drug kingpins don\u00b4t tend to hobnob at casual mixers, the prosecutors said, and they would have traveled with so many armed guards that Blanco\u00b4s own security detail would have known something was amiss.<\/p>\n Blanco\u00b4s son, also named Cuauht\u00e9moc, did not respond to requests for comment about the allegation that his finances were under scrutiny by law enforcement.He has not been accused of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n Attempts to reach two of the alleged drug traffickers in the photo – Figueroa and Irving Solano Vera – were unsuccessful. Castro, the third purported gangster, died in prison in 2019.<\/p>\n In many other countries, mingling with suspected drug traffickers might be a political death sentence.But Blanco\u00b4s career has prospered, in large part because he has a powerful backer: President Andr\u00e9s Manuel L\u00f3pez Obrador.<\/p>\n The Mexican leader has transformed the nation\u00b4s political landscape in recent years, constructing an electoral juggernaut with his Morena party, which has grabbed power from established parties.His populist pitch to clean up Mexico\u00b4s corrupt politics has won him poll ratings that are some of the highest in the world for a national leader.<\/p>\n L\u00f3pez Obrador repeatedly has ignored controversy swirling around Blanco, whose athletic achievements and rags-to-riches story have proved electoral gold in soccer-obsessed Mexico.In case you have any issues with regards to wherever and also the best way to work with evdeN EvE NAKLiYAT<\/a>, it is possible to call us on our own page. Their alliance dates to the 2018 national elections. Then-presidential candidate L\u00f3pez Obrador backed Blanco\u00b4s bid for the Morelos governorship, recognizing the ex-player\u00b4s appeal, particularly among poor voters at the core of both men\u00b4s power base.<\/p>\n The president\u00b4s office did not respond to requests for comment for this report.<\/p>\n The probe of Blanco\u00b4s suspected cartel ties comes on top of multiple corruption investigations into his activities as a public servant.The inquiries began with his first elected office as mayor of the picturesque colonial city of Cuernavaca from January 2016 to July 2018. On Blanco\u00b4s watch, control of the city\u00b4s water utility and its cash receipts ended up in the hands of Figueroa, the alleged mobster with his arm around Blanco in the photo, according to Morelos prosecutors, military intelligence documents viewed by Reuters and interviews with five people who worked for the utility.<\/p>\n Blanco said the water utility was “fine” during his tenure and its debts went down, though the utility\u00b4s official figures contradict this.<\/p>\n Prosecutors also discovered more than $2 million stashed in four undeclared bank accounts belonging to Blanco, according to a non-public document filed by prosecutors with the Morelos legislature on April 18, 2022, which was viewed by Reuters.The news agency is the first to report on these bank accounts, one of them in the United States. Blanco did not list the accounts on asset disclosures required of all Mexican public officials.<\/p>\n Blanco confirmed the existence of the four accounts to Reuters.”I\u00b4ve got an account in the United States. What\u00b4s the problem?” Blanco said. Initially, he claimed to have declared them, but when pressed, the governor said he didn\u00b4t publicly divulge these assets due to “security” concerns.<\/p>\n He also revealed he has a flat in Chicago, which is undeclared, that he said he is selling.Local property records show Blanco owns a condominium just steps away from the city\u00b4s famed Michigan Avenue shopping district, purchased for $450,000 in August 2007.<\/p>\n Blanco said the source of his wealth is money he earned as a footballer, including being paid up to $1 million for commercials when he played professionally in the United States.Blanco played for Major EvDEN eve NAkliYAT<\/a> League Soccer\u00b4s Chicago Fire from 2007 to 2009.<\/p>\n He said he is happy to have the information about his assets out there so he can “shut the mouths of those assholes.”<\/p>\n “I\u00b4ve got nothing to hide,” he said.<\/p>\n Through it all, L\u00f3pez Obrador has consistently defended Blanco, calling local government investigations against him “political maneuvering” by his enemies.”They don\u00b4t stop attacking, but I support him,” L\u00f3pez Obrador said last year.<\/p>\n Blanco, like all elected officials in Mexico, enjoys immunity from prosecution while in office. He has not been charged with any crime.<\/p>\n Prosecutors in April asked the Morelos state congress to impeach Blanco so that he could be stripped of that shield.But state lawmakers aligned with L\u00f3pez Obrador have stymied those efforts. In September, the ex-soccer star ditched his Social Encounter Party to join the president\u00b4s Morena.<\/p>\n Blanco\u00b4s political career may yet hit new heights.In Morelos, he is being touted as a possible Morena candidate for the 2024 race to be mayor of Mexico City, one of the country\u00b4s most influential offices. Blanco said running for mayor is a possibility, but it would depend on his poll ratings, and he would need “authorization” from L\u00f3pez Obrador.<\/p>\n Two government officials and a Morena party politician familiar with the situation told Reuters they doubt Blanco can leapfrog more experienced rivals to win the nod from his new party.But L\u00f3pez Obrador is likely to keep Blanco close to secure the votes of poor young men who idolize the former captain of Mexico\u00b4s national soccer team, said political analyst Jos\u00e9 Antonio Crespo, formerly of Mexico\u00b4s Center for Economic Research and Teaching.<\/p>\n “He doesn\u00b4t care which people are linked to the narcos, that\u00b4s clear,” Crespo said of the president.”What\u00b4s important to him is winning. It doesn\u00b4t matter how or with whom.”<\/p>\n FROM THE SLUMS TO THE STATEHOUSE<\/p>\n Blanco, 50, is one of Mexico\u00b4s all-time sports greats. After breaking through in the early 1990s with Club Am\u00e9rica, the country\u00b4s most successful soccer team, the pugnacious attacker quickly became a fan favorite.Supporters adored his style, melding combativeness with silky smooth dribbling skills.<\/p>\n At the 1998 World Cup in France, he awed fans with his signature “Cuauhtemi\u00f1a” move: trapping the ball between his legs and jumping between two defenders.Even his name dazzled. Cuauht\u00e9moc was the last Aztec emperor, a warrior whose name signifies the “descending eagle” dive-bombing its prey.<\/p>\n Blanco grew up in Mexico City\u00b4s Tepito neighborhood, one of Latin America\u00b4s most notorious slums, where he honed his toughness and street smarts.In a 2015 ESPN interview he recalled peddling pirated cassette tapes as a kid. He would go on to earn millions playing for clubs in Spain and the United States. Tabloids lapped up his party-animal persona and combustible relationships with models and telenovela stars.<\/p>\n In 2014, as age and injuries forced Blanco to contemplate retirement, two little-known politicians in Cuernavaca say they approached him with a proposal.Brothers Roberto and Julio Y\u00e1\u00f1ez, who at the time ran the small Social Democratic Party, wanted to harness Blanco\u00b4s fame to wrest the mayor\u00b4s office from established parties.<\/p>\n The brothers told Reuters that Blanco at first resisted their overtures to run for election, telling them he “hates politics.” They claim they changed his mind with a cash payment of 7 million pesos (around $470,000 USD at the time): 5 million pesos of it for Blanco and 2 million pesos for Jos\u00e9 Manuel Sanz, the footballer\u00b4s agent.The Y\u00e1\u00f1ezes said the money was put up by a group of businessmen who wanted access to the mayor and to secure public contracts if Blanco won. The Y\u00e1\u00f1ezes declined to name the businessmen.<\/p>\n Blanco said he was approached by the Y\u00e1\u00f1ezes about entering the mayoral race and mulled the idea for a month before committing because he disliked politics.But he said no money changed hands and that there was no contract. “It\u00b4s totally a lie,” Blanco said, in reference to the Y\u00e1\u00f1ezes\u00b4 allegations, first reported by Mexican media in 2016.<\/p>\n Sanz likewise denied receiving kickbacks.”It\u00b4s false,” he said of the Y\u00e1\u00f1ezes\u00b4 claims.<\/p>\n Roberto Y\u00e1\u00f1ez showed Reuters a signed copy of Blanco\u00b4s contract laying out expectations for the candidate\u00b4s run. The soccer star was instructed to pose for photos with prospective voters, dash off autographs and greet women with a kiss, according to the document, EVden EVe NaKLiYAt<\/a> which Blanco has claimed is fake.<\/p>\n What\u00b4s undisputed is that Blanco was a sensation on the campaign trail.Voters queued for hours to snatch selfies and get soccer balls signed, ultimately carrying him to victory over more seasoned competitors. “I fucked them over,” he crowed on election night in June 2015.<\/p>\n