Strike closed mine union leader faces Mexican arrest threat
Wednesday, 16 Sep 2009
Svherald reported that a federal judge in Mexico recently issued an arrest warrant for a union leader who is heading the Cananea copper mine strike that has lasted more than 2 years.
According to a news release issued September 4th 2009 by the attorney general’s office in Mexico, Mr Napoleon Gomez and his accomplices are wanted for their alleged roles related to the improper use of USD 55 million of trust funds for current and former unionized employees of certain mining companies.
In order to conceal illegally obtained resources, they allegedly carried out various banking operations that ranged from exchanges to foreign transfers in addition to purchases of artwork and cash deposits in accounts.
According to the attorney general’s office, the investigation by the federal prosecutor took 40 months with the participation of accounting experts and multiple depositions from eyewitnesses.
Mr Gomez has lived in self imposed exile in Vancouver since 2006 to avoid corruption and embezzlement charges. On January 30th 2009, the Mexican government asked Canadian authorities to extradite him. The arrest warrant issued September 3rd 2009 will be incorporated into the extradition request to give a judge in Canada even stronger evidence of the alleged responsibility of the fugitive.
