U.S. immigration officials sprung a former Mexican presidential candidate from federal prison and sent him south of the border this week — where he may one day long for a more pleasant U.S. prison stay.
Tomas Jesus Yarrington Ruvalcaba, 68, was removed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Wednesday and turned over to Mexican authorities who were waiting for him at the busy San Ysidro Port of Entry between San Diego and Tijuana.
He’s hardly home free.
Yarington faces charges in Mexico that include organized crime activities and illegally obtained assets. He was serving a 108-month sentence in the Federal Correctional Institution Thomson in Illinois after he pleaded guilty in the U.S. to conspiracy to commit money laundering in 2021.
Some might consider the Thomson a low-security penitentiary with its 1500 inmates and a resort compared to the violent and unsanitary conditions found in many Mexican lockups where there is no sign of reform. According to Human Rights Watch:
“Mexico’s prison system is characterized by massive overcrowding, deteriorating physical facilities, poorly trained and vastly underpaid guards and other prison officials, system-wide corruption, and, most fundamentally, lack of money.”
Yarrington was also the governor of Tamaulipas, Mexico, from 1999 to 2005, and ran as a presidential candidate for Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party in 2005. Tamaulipas is a state on the coast of the Gulf of America with a tropical climate and an economy based on the petrochemical industries.
Yarrington was accused in a federal grand jury in Texas of taking millions of dollars in bribes from the Gulf Cartel and other traffickers as governor. He started in local office. Beginning in 1998, U.S. authorities have said, Yarrington took money from the illegal drug trade when he was mayor of Matamoros on the U.S. border.
U.S. Immigration reported that ICE ERO Mexico City and Security Alliance for Fugitive Enforcement Initiative were instrumental with providing essential documentation regarding Yarrington’s history during his immigrations proceedings that resulted in his removal to Mexico. Stated ICE:
“According to court documents, Yarrington accepted bribes from individuals and private companies in Mexico to do business with the state of Tamaulipas while he served as governor. Yarrington used the bribery money he received while governor to purchase properties in the U.S. He had nominee buyers buy property in the U.S. to hide his ownership of the properties and the illegal bribery money used to purchase them. Yarrington laundered his illegally obtained bribe money in the United States by purchasing beachfront condominiums, large estates, commercial developments, airplanes and luxury vehicles.”
In April 2017, authorities captured Yarrington in Italy while he was traveling under an assumed name and false passport. He was taken into custody on a provisional arrest warrant based on the indictment returned in May 2013.
Charging and convicting the former governor in the U.S. was a team effort, ICE reported, involving the Drug Enforcement Administration, Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation, the FBI, and the Texas Attorney General’s Office. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas handled the prosecution.
On Feb. 27, an immigration judge with the DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review ordered Yarrington removed. He waived his right to appeal.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
