MADRID (AP) — A prominent former Mexican politician was detained Friday at Madrid's airport by anti-corruption officers and was being questioned by a judge, Spanish officials said.
Former Institutional Revolutionary Party chief Humberto Moreira was taken into custody based on a Spanish arrest warrant, said an official with the national police who spoke on condition of anonymity because of police policy. The official had no other details about why Moreira was sought by Spanish anti-corruption officers.
A court spokesman confirmed Friday night that Moreira was being questioned.
Moreira has not been charged in the U.S. or Mexico.
But two of Moreira's top associates have pleaded guilty in federal court in San Antonio, Texas, to conspiring to transport stolen money. In the plea agreement for businessman and media owner Roland Gonzalez Trevino dated last April, Moreira appears unnamed as co-conspirator 1, "a high-ranking official in Coahuila" who won the governorship. The plea agreement said he started in January or February of 2006 "taking money for his own personal use from the government of Coahuila."
Moreira was Coahuila governor from 2005-2011.
Gonzalez admitted to participating in a plan to defraud or steal money from Coahuila with co-conspirator 1 and others. Gonzalez also admits to transferring more than $1.8 million that was "stolen, converted or taken by fraud" from the state of Coahuila and sent to the U.S.
Moreira's former state treasurer, Hector Javier Villarreal Hernandez, also pleaded guilty in 2014 in San Antonio to conspiracy to launder money and conspiring to transport stolen money.
Moreira left the governorship in 2011 to head the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party just as it was gearing for a comeback with candidate Enrique Pena Nieto, now the Mexican president. Moreira resigned the same year when it was revealed that the Coahuila state debt rose from $27 million to nearly $3 billion during his tenure.
AP
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