A fugitive Mexican governor singled out as a surrogate for drug cartels has been arrested in Italy.

Authorities in Italy arrested former Tamaulipas Governor Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba on Sunday at the request of Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office, a statement revealed.

Yarrington was a fugitive from Interpol and was arrested based on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity and money laundering, the statement revealed.

As Breitbart Texas previously reported, Yarrington has been a fugitive from the U.S. Department of Justice. Yarrington, who hails from the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), is named in a multi-count indictment charging him with various allegations of money laundering and drug trafficking conspiracies. However, while he was a wanted fugitive, Mexican authorities protected him, as Breitbart Texas reported after obtaining leaked documents proving that former Tamaulipas Governor Egidio Torre Cantu aided fellow PRI members on the run; Yarrington, and Eugenio Hernandez. Under Torre Cantu’s orders, Yarrington had eight Tamaulipas cops as his bodyguards, while Hernandez kept four. The new governor from a rival party stopped the protection scheme.



Yarrington was singled out as a key player in providing protection to Mexico’s Gulf and Los Zetas Cartels. The former governor has had various properties seized by prosecutors, including a luxury condo in South Padre Island and a San Antonio home he bought for a woman who, at the time, was a Texas State University professor. Prof. Sindy Chapa is currently a professor at Florida State University

A second Tamaulipas governor named Eugenio Hernandez Flores is also listed as a fugitive by U.S. authorities on multiple money laundering charges. While Yarrington is wanted in both the U.S. and Mexico, Hernandez continues to live freely and is often seen making public appearances.

As Breitbart Texas reported, the former governors of Chihuahua and Veracruz are currently listed as wanted fugitives by Mexican authorities in connection with engaging in organized criminal activity, embezzlement, and money laundering.

All of the wanted former governors are members of Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), the same party that current President Enrique Peña Nieto (EPN) belongs to. The PRI has a long history of being tied to corrupt activity including the alleged funneling of funds from operators of the Juarez Cartel into EPN’s campaign in a scandal known as MonexGate. The PRI issued a statement on Sunday night congratulating the authorities involved in the arrest and demanding that an example be made out of Yarrington. The PRI claimed to have suspended Yarrington in the past and to have formally removed him from the party in 2016.

On Sunday night, current Tamaulipas Governor Francisco Cabeza De Vaca, who hails from the National Action Party, took to social media to congratulate Mexican authorities for Yarrington’s arrest and added that he expected that the law would be applied in a timely manner.



Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.