Mexico: Former PRI leader investigated for trafficking is transferred to a maximum security prison

The former leader of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) on the Mexico City Cuauhtémoc Gutiérrez de la Torre, probably responsible for the crime of trafficking, was transferred from a prison in the capital to a maximum security prison to avoid possible acts of corruption, reported Monday the Attorney General of Justice of the capital.

The transfer of Gutiérrez de la Torre took place from the Oriente Men’s Preventive Prison, in the capital, to the Federal Center for Social Readaptation number 1, “El Altiplano”, also known as Almoloya, in the central State of Mexico.

In a statement, the capital prosecutor’s office indicated that “derived from the profile of the accused, particularly due to his possible economic capacity that could facilitate acts of corruption”, the Public Ministry asked the judicial authority to carry out the change of his place of detention to a maximum security prison.

In addition, he said that for this transfer “the protection of the victims was considered, in order to inhibit a possible risk in their integrity.”

The Prosecutor’s Office also pointed out the saturation of the prison system of Mexico City, as one of the reasons for carrying out the change of criminal for the defendant, this “in the process of continuing his criminal process in a larger internment center ”.

On January 4, a criminal judge, based in the Oriente Reclusorio (prison), issued a formal arrest warrant against Gutiérrez de la Torre for alleged sexual exploitation of women.

Gutiérrez de la Torre, born in 1968, studied law and was linked to the PRI from a young age, a party for which he became a local deputy in Mexico City and even assumed the leadership of this group in the capital between 2011 and 2014.

In 2014 he was removed from his position after being involved in an alleged prostitution ring in the Executive Committee.

In April 2014, the local station MVS presented an investigation, with direct testimonies, in which it was denounced that PRI personnel were recruiting young people in the service of Gutiérrez, paid with party funds, whose functions included providing him favors. sexual.

Gutiérrez, heir to an empire forged in the garbage industry, had between 12 and 15 women at his service at that time, according to the report released by MVS.

The investigative work included a journalist who posed as one of the candidates for the position and who recorded a compromising conversation.

In October 2018, a federal judge ordered the capital prosecutor’s office to reopen the criminal complaint filed by three women against Gutiérrez for operating a prostitution ring within the capital’s PRI, and the investigation began a few months later.

In addition, the capital prosecutor’s office reported in March 2021 that it requested Interpol to issue a red card for the search, location and apprehension of Gutiérrez de la Torre and four other people.