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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