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Bakken.com
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Joshua Fechter | San Antonio Express-News
More South Texas officials will be arrested for corruption
following Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Trevino’s guilty plea in April to
federal money laundering charges, members from the worldwide
“hacktivist” group Anonymous claim in a YouTube video.
The video, which has nearly 100,000 views since being published
Friday, shows a person in a mask with computer-generated audio alleging
that several Hidalgo County officials, ranging from county commissioners
and school district officials, are involved in money laundering related
to Mexican drug cartel activity in the region.
“It’s your job to voice out the corrupted officials if you wish to
still be living in a safe community,” the person says in the video,
which is at the end of the gallery above.
The person adds, “If you guys don’t voice your opinions and support
the activists and candidates that are battling these hideous officials,
you will soon see martial law, DPS checkpoints, military movement in
effect due to the high level of corruption and insecurity across the
whole border.”
Requests for comment were not immediately returned by Hidalgo County officials.
This isn’t the first time Anonymous has taken aim at cartel-fueled
corruption: in 2013, the group posted information about ranches they
claimed belong to Mexican politicians used by the Zetas to smuggle drugs
into the United States, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
They also posted information about Facebook pages and Twitter handles
used by Zetas and other cartels to communicate and spread propaganda.
Trevino admitted in April to accepting money from Weslaco-based drug
trafficker Tomas “El Gallo” Gonzalez, who is suspected of running a drug
trafficking organization from 2007 to 2013 that moved thousands of
kilograms of marijuana and hundreds of kilograms of cocaine from the Rio
Grande Valley to Arkansas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
Gonzalez gave some of the proceeds from the trade to Trevino, who
admitted to accepting the money for his election campaign despite
knowing the money was derived from illegal activities.
Federal prosecutors said Trevino also attempted to conceal the
“nature, location, source, ownership and control” of the money by filing
false campaign finance reports, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
Former Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Commander Jose A. Padilla also
pleaded guilty in April to receiving cash from Gonzalez in 2011 and 2012
in exchange for information about ongoing law enforcement activities.
The mask worn in the video is a Guy Fawkes mask, popularized by the
dystopian comic book and 2005 film “V for Vendetta” and adopted by
Anonymous members and supporters.
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