On June 18th, the Swiss government announced that it would hand over approximately $74 million dollars to the Mexican government. This is just part of the assets that the Swiss Government confiscated from Raul Salinas de Gortari, brother of Carlos Salinas de Gortari, former President of Mexico. The remaining part of the assets would be returned to other claimants.
In 1994, Mario Ruiz Massieu, a Deputy Attorney General investigating the murder of his brother, resigned to his position during a famous press conference in which he said that "the demons are out there". With this phrase he informally accused high ranking officials of interfering with his investigation. One of those high ranking officials was Raul Salinas de Gortari, who was later found guilty of planning the assassination of Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, former governor of Guerrero, Secretary General of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), and former brother-in-law. Raul Salinas was imprisoned in 1995 and released 10 years later due to insufficient evidence of his participation in the assassination. However, he was also charged with corruption and illicit enrichment after the Swiss government found that millions of dollars linked to him could be traced to drug cartels.
On the basis of Swiss and Mexican investigations, it was demonstrated that at least $74 million dollars were linked to criminal activities. These assets are being returned to the victims of the crime. The Swiss government assumes these victims are the people of Mexico. I am sure that the Mexican government will be happy to be the representative of these victims. Hopefully, the government is now free of all those "demons" that were out there in the mid 1990s.
