Roberto Sandoval Castañeda, former governor of Nayarit, was indicted for the second time for his alleged involvement in operations involving illicit funds totaling more than 156 million pesos. He has also been accused of having ties to the CJNG (National Criminal Justice Commission) and the Beltrán Leyva Organization since 2019.
Castañeda was born on November 15, 1969, in Tepic, Nayarit. He began his university studies in Agricultural Engineering, but never completed them. Instead, he earned diplomas in Parliamentary Training and Administrative Policy from the Autonomous University of Nayarit, in Governance and Political Management from the Autonomous University of Mexico, and participated in the Seminar on Governance for Local Governments at George Washington University in the United States.
His wife is Lilia López Torres, with whom he has two children: Pablo Roberto and Lidy Alejandra. His political career began in the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) under former Governor Ney González.
In 2005, he was elected Deputy to the 28th Legislature of the Nayarit State Congress, where he served as President of the Youth and Sports Commission. In 2008, he became mayor of Tepic from 2008 to 2011. This year, he requested a leave of absence to join the state gubernatorial candidacy.
After requesting a leave of absence, he won the election for governor of his state under the “Nayarit Unites Us” coalition, which was made up of the PRI, Nueva Alianza, and the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM).
According to data revealed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Office of Foreign Assets Control, from 2011 to 2017, Sandoval was linked to illicit activities along with his prosecutor, Edgar Veytia.
Among the crimes the Treasury Department accused them of were kidnapping, extortion, illicit enrichment, murder, and robbery, in addition to maintaining alleged ties to members of the CJNG and the Beltrán Leyva Organization during their public duties.
Roberto Sandoval’s wife
However, the only one jailed for this was Veytia, who was imprisoned in the United States for drug trafficking and international conspiracy to manufacture and distribute heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana, but was released in March of this year.
Following his release, five families originally from the state of Nayarit filed a civil lawsuit in a federal court in the United States against the former prosecutor, accusing him of acts of torture carried out directly by him and by security agents under his command between 2012 and 2017.
Meanwhile, Sandoval Castañeda was detained until 2021 for the crime of operating with illicit proceeds, along with his daughter Lydi Alejandra, during an operation in Nuevo León. Before his arrest, he was sought in Nayarit, Jalisco, the State of Mexico, and Mexico City by agents of the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).
Since then, the former governor of Nayarit has been held at the Federal Social Readaptation Center (Cefereso) No. 4 “El Rincón” in Tepic, after being charged by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) with electoral crimes.
As for the rest of his family, both his wife and two children faced sanctions in the United States for complicity and for maintaining illicit assets in their names. In 2020, the U.S. Embassy and Consulates in Mexico reported that, following the sanctions issued against him, Roberto Sandoval, his wife, children, and immediate family would not be able to receive U.S. visas.
On September 10, Sandoval was found guilty of falsifying documents to illegally seize land in the municipality of San Blas in 2012.
According to documents, the former governor forged the signature of the owner of a 58-hectare plot of land to transfer the property to his name.
Source: infobae
