Friday, October 28, 2016

High-dollar Texas properties tied to Mexico corruption scandal sell for millions

Latest: Corruption and Money Laundering.

High-dollar Texas properties tied to Mexico corruption scandal sell for millions.


Beyond the gourmet kitchen with mahogany cabinets and marble countertops of a North Side house
 auctioned Thursday as part of a corruption scandal in Mexico, a large den with cathedral ceilings 
leads to a corridor where most visitors must crouch to waist level to get through a custom door 
small enough for kids.Among the four bedrooms in the      house are one resembling a playhouse,
 with pink walls and blue “sky” on the ceiling, and another with scenes of some fairy tale countryside. 
Disney princesses are the central theme in one of the rooms: A Cinderella decal graces the toilet,
 while more decals of Cinderella, Snow White, Belle and Aurora adorn the shower stall. house 
are one resembling a playhouse, with pink walls and blue “sky” on the ceiling, and another 
with scenes of some fairy tale countryside. Disney princesses are the central theme in one of the
 rooms: A Cinderella decal graces the toilet, while more decals of Cinderella, Snow White, 
Belle and Aurora adorn the shower stall.
The 3,900-square foot house was among four San Antonio properties the federal government 
auctioned as part of its investigation of money stolen from the state of Coahuila and laundered here. 
Altogether, the U.S. walked away with more than $20 million in the auctions.
The Treasury Department sold the North Side house for $690,000, an adjacent 
empty lot for $100,000, a storage center for $11.45 million and a pharmacy and two
 empty commercial lots for $8.8 million.
The government seized the properties as part of its case against the former treasurer for
 the Mexican border state. Investigators continue to pry whether the corruption and money 
laundering went higher.
The feds had already made nearly $10 million selling property they seized from former
 Coahuila treasurer Héctor Javier Villarreal, who in 2014 admitted to financial crimes
 in a San Antonio federal court. Earlier this week, they sold a South Padre Island 
condominium owned by one of Villarreal’s companies for $390,000 and a Brownsville 
apartment complex and nearby lot for $2.68 million.
In August, the government sold the North Pointe Shopping Center at Redland Road 
and U.S. 281 for $6.75 million.
The house at 3911 Luz Del Faro, in the Cibolo Canyons subdivision off TPC Parkway,
 had been owned by a company tied to one of Villarreal’s brothers-in-law. The house 
and adjacent lot are tucked in a subdivision neighboring the JW Marriott Resort and
 Spa. The home has amenities like a large three-car garage, huge walk-in closets bigger
 than some college dorm rooms, cathedral ceilings throughout, marble tops, a water feature
 in the backyard off the custom deck, and all of it wired for audiophiles.
“I’m moving all my family here,” said Karim Charania, who lives in the Rogers Ranch 
subdivision and submitted the winning bid for the house.
“The windows will stay open and I’ll have the couch right here and put the TV over here,” 
he said, motioning to the large living room off the kitchen that has views of the deck and water
 feature in the backyard.
The couple who submitted the winning bid for the lot next door said they plan to build a hom
e on it. Both auction winners said they were not nervous about the properties’ history.
The buyers of the CVS Pharmacy on Stone Oak Parkway and Centurion Storage center on
 North Loop 1604 wouldn’t give their names or comment.
The storage center had been appraised at $19 million, but Jon Danklefs, a San Antonio 
commercial real estate agent, said many in the commercial real estate industry valued it 
closer to $8 million. The high valuation by the appraisal district and problems with the 
condition of the property “maybe can be attributed to an absentee owner, AKA the 
government,” Danklefs said.
“Any other owner would protest that and fight that tooth and nail along the way,” he
 said of the appraisal, which had increased from $7 million in 2013. “So if that wasn’t
 occurring on this property, what other things were just not being addressed along the way?”
As for the pharmacy, he said, “At first blush, not knowing anything other than the
 general area and age of the CVS and not knowing anything about the adjacent lot, that seems 
very expensive to me.”
Prosecutors have seized an additional $10 million from bank accounts connected to Villarreal.
The properties were taken through a series of asset forfeiture lawsuits filed by federal
 prosecutors in San Antonio. Prosecutors allege they were bought with money stolen from 
Coahuila’s state coffers. The state is billions of dollars in debt. U.S. prosecutors allege
 that former state officialsstole hundreds of millions of dollars from the government coffers
 and laundered tens of millions of dollars in San Antonio.
One of the targets of the San Antonio investigation is former Coahuila governor Humberto
 Moreira. Moreira hasn’t been charged with a crime in the U.S., but last month his 
mother-in-law agreed to turn over to the Internal Revenue Service her home in Greystone 
Country Estates at the intersection of Blanco and Huebner roads.
The former governor has denied that he was involved in anything illegal and the state of
 Coahuila said it has found no evidence of the widespread theft that the U.S. government is alleging.
Investigators say that besides trying to send crooks to prison, they are also hitting them 
where it hurts — in the pocket by taking away their possessions.
“I’ve always said, this (money laundering) is a huge issue here,” said retired U.S. Drug
 Enforcement Administration agent Javier Peña, who previously oversaw the agency’s 
operations in San Antonio, Houston, Puerto Rico and San Francisco. “San Antonio has
 always been a favorite place to invest illicit money and it’s been proven here.”
Villarreal is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

gcontreras@express-news.net
Twitter: @gmaninfedland



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