For several years, the former president of the cooperative La Cruz Azul, Guillermo ‘Billy’ Alvarez Cuevas, his brothers, as well as his brother-in-law and also former director, Víctor Manuel Garcés Rojo, made millionaire detours with the cooperative’s resources through a scheme of phantom companies.
This was recounted by Angel Martín Sepúlveda Junquera, former employee of Alvarez and Miguel Eduardo Borrel Rodríguez, legal director of the Cooperative, in their requests for the criterion of opportunity sent to the Attorney General’s Office of the Republic and of which Animal Politics has a copy.
Both characters are also involved in money laundering research, so they asked for this benefit in exchange for providing all the information they have about alvarez’s ill-handling and the others involved.
Read more: Judge orders capture of Billy Alvarez for organized crime and washing
The opportunity criterion is a legal remedy that would allow Sepúlveda Junquera and Borrel Rodríguez not to bring criminal proceedings against him.
The first detours
In his application, the lawyer Angel Sepúlveda recounts that the bad financial management took place since 2004, the year in which the Alvarez brothers in complicity with Víctor Garcés (then legal director of the Cooperative) modified clauses of a trust that benefited partners and retirees, so that the company Impulso Agent de Seguros y Fianzas S.A de C.V received from that trust various payments of policies , in addition to hiring her as a Consultant of the Technical Committee, a service for which she received another payment.
This company, says Sepúlveda Junquera, is represented by Carlos Javier Terroba Wolff, a person with which Víctor Gárces had a business relationship during his management as legal director of the Cooperative.
In a short time, Impulso Agente de Seguros y Fianzas S.A de CV, through various companies owned by him, obtained various contracts from the cooperative that gave him income of 160 million 540 thousand pesos.
These contracts related to services allegedly directed at the beneficiaries of the trust. However, the benefit did not materialize and the transactions made only embezzle the workers’ trust.
In exchange for depositing the money in their companies, the then cross-Government leaders forgiven Terroba Wolff’s debt to the cooperative.
You may be interested: New apprehension order rotated against ‘Billy’ Alvarez and his son for fraudulent administration
Sepúlveda Junquera notes that these deposits were only the beginning of the strategy by which brothers Alvarez and Víctor Garcés diverted millions of pesos.
“Once the debt to the reported companies was forgiven (without faculties and unduly) by Mr. Guillermo Alvarez on behalf of the Cooperative and through the strategy put forward by Víctor Garcés and Afredo Alvarez, Carlos Terroba withdrew the resources that the Trust had granted him (…) to later deposit them in accounts of Mr. Garcés, as well as accounts of Guillermo Alvarez Cuevas, and various accounts of José Alfredo alvarez Cuevas”, is read in the narration of the facts.
Business between the Alvarez and Terroba Wolff continued for years. In 2008, Carlos Terroba Wolff and Víctor Garcés signed a contract for “alleged contributions and services provided” by Garcés to a company called Tecno Maclimited and Blue Consultant. For these so-called services, Terroba Wolff paid almost 4 million euros to Garcés.
Creating phantom companies
Years after these events, in 2012, brothers Alvarez and Victor Gárces asked for help from their lawyers to “obtain resources from the Cooperative without being able to be audited or follow the trail of money to hide their origin or destination”.
In his fact-finding report, the legal director of the Cooperative, Miguel Eduardo Borrel Rodríguez, points out that this request was made during a meeting to the lawyer, Angel Martín Sepúlveda Junquera, and that he was ordered to support any instruction of the lawyer.
At that meeting, in addition to Borrel Rodríguez and Sepúlveda Junquera, José Alfredo Alvarez, Guillermo Alvarez, Víctor Garcés and Mario Sánchez Alvarez, a nephew of ‘Billy’ Alvarez who worked in the financial area of the Cooperative, were present.
Victor Garcés and Mario Sánchez Alvarez argued that they needed these resources to “have some partners and authorities happy”, and that in the case of the partners they would distribute it as ‘bonds’.
Both Borrel Rodríguez and Sepúlveda Junquera make special mention of José Alfredo Alvarez, who had supposedly been dismissed years earlier, but still had power and made decisions next to their relatives.
In response to the request of Víctor Garcés and Mario Sánchez, the lawyer Angel Sepulveda told them that one possible way to do what they wanted was to resume the scheme a few years ago with the creation of facade companies, to send them the resources without any complaints of non-existent services, and then extract from these companies the resources.
Read: Judge orders ‘Billy’ Alvarez’s accounts unlocked; UIF appeals decision
“In the following years a number of companies were formed that used to divert a large amount of resources from the Cooperative, repeatedly for several years”, read in the rapporteurship of Sepúlveda Junquera.
According to the lawyer’s version, payments made to this company were ordered by Víctor Garcés, José Alfredo Alvarez and Guillermo Alvarez. While the transactions were managed by Mario Sánchez.
In his account, Miguel Borrel Rodríguez claims that he never saw “a single deliverable or the materiality of the alleged contracted services”.
The legal director of the Cooperative says that even Victor Garcés and José Alfredo Alvarez were pressuring the legal area in his charge and the financial area to make the corresponding payments.
If they found any obstacles they asked for the intervention of ‘Billy’ Alvarez, who ordered that the deposit be made immediately. On some occasions, payments to these companies were put before others of real interest to the Cooperative.
Some of the companies created in recent years for the diversion of resources were:
Experts in Business Advisory, S.A de C.V.
Asesorías Profesionales Eicer, S.A de C.V.
Trans Nau, S.A de C.V.
Margin Advisors, S.C.
Corporate Facundia, S.A de C.V.
Martín Sepúlveda Junquera’s version is said to have diverted resources in this way during the time when senior officials diverted resources, he was also asked to give monthly, from 2014 to 2018, the amount of 800 thousand pesos to Miguel Borrel, in addition to 50% of his fees being transferred to Víctor Garcés.
For his part, Borrel accepts that he received the 800 thousand pesos per month but that he should then deliver them to Guillermo Alvarez, who in turn distributed them between Víctor Garcés and José Alfredo Alvarez.
According to Borrel these money deliveries were made at the home of ‘Billy’ Alvarez and other times in his Cooperative office.
In addition, attorney Sepúlveda Junquera reports that in recent years he was the victim of extortion and threats for participating in the organization of the diversion scheme.
Finally Borrel also accuses that Guillermo Alvarez and his relatives used to act against dissenting partners in his management through false allegations.
What do they ask for in return?
Requests for both characters were submitted to the FGR in late 2020.
In the case of Miguel Borrel Rodríguez, the request to the Prosecutor’s Office is that the criterion of opportunity be applied in his favor (therefore any criminal action against him would be arrested) to present his testimony in person.
It also commits to paying 5 million pesos as damage repair.
While Angel Martín Sepúlveda Junquera claims that he has already complied with the damage repair, he asks that he be given the opportunity criterion, that the exercise of criminal proceedings be suspended and that the damage be repaired, having been the victim of extortion.
In July 2020, a judge released an apprehension order against Guillermo Alvarez, and five others, including Victor Garcés, for crimes of organized crime and money laundering.
In August of the same year a control judge from Mexico City turned a new order against ‘Billy’ Alvarez, his son, Robin Alvarez, and 7 other partners of the Cooperative for the crime of fraudulent administration.
The alleged embezzlements amounted to $429 million and $44 million, so the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance froze the former director’s accounts, an action that lasted only a few months after Alvarez filed a protection with the Seventh District Court in Administrative Matters of Mexico City, which was granted to him in December 2020.
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