PRI aiming to cut ties with ex-governor More bad news for Mexican politician taking heat in S.A.; office raided.

“I do not face criminal charges in the United States. I’m very calm.” — Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, former Tamaulipas governor, on Twitter “I do not face criminal charges in the United States. I’m very calm.” — Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, former Tamaulipas governor, on Twitter Photo: Foto De Cortesía, TYR Photo: Foto De Cortesía, TYR Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close PRI aiming to cut ties with ex-governor 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

With this summer's presidential election in its sights, Mexico's opposition party is trying to expel a former governor and presidential candidate who's the subject of a money laundering investigation in South Texas.

The Institutional Revolutionary Party, known by its Spanish acronym PRI, announced Wednesday that it is taking steps to remove Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, a former governor and congressman from the border state of Tamaulipas, after he was accused by U.S. federal agents and prosecutors of being on the take from Mexico's drug cartels.

The decision was made, PRI said, after the U.S. Justice Department announced Tuesday that Yarrington, who sought his party's nomination for president in 2005, was the subject of an investigation into millions of dollars in bribes paid by Mexican drug cartels and laundered in San Antonio and elsewhere in Texas.

Yarrington is not charged with a crime, but in a civil filing Tuesday and a criminal complaint seeking the arrest of a rancher and businessman in San Antonio in February, U.S. authorities alleged that Yarrington used his position as a powerful politician to enrich himself. In the civil case, federal prosecutors in Corpus Christi are trying to seize a condo unit on South Padre Island that they said belongs to Yarrington.

While he was governor from 1999 to 2004 and a presidential candidate, Yarrington took millions of dollars from the Gulf Cartel and its former allies, the Zetas, the documents allege.

The PRI “exhorts Mr. Yarrington to cooperate fully with the authorities,” the announcement read.

Yarrington, through his lawyer and on Twitter, denied the allegations.

“He has no knowledge of the allegations in the complaint, and he refutes everything,” said Yarrington's attorney, Houston lawyer Joel Androphy. “This is a lawsuit, and anybody can make allegations to file a lawsuit. If they got the information from somebody else, you've got to consider the source.”

After rumors swirled in Mexico that he'd been arrested in Texas, Yarrington tweeted to dispel them.

“I have not been detained,” he wrote. “I do not face criminal charges in the United States. I'm very calm.”

It's the latest embarrassment for the PRI stemming from money laundering investigations in San Antonio.

More Information Accused cartel front man has business in S.A.

U.S. authorities have also made money laundering allegations against a former official from the border state of Coahuila who worked under Humberto Moreria, a former governor of that state who resigned under a cloud of scandal and went on to serve for a time as PRI's national chairman.

PRI candidate Enrique Peña Nieto is the clear favorite for the July 1 presidential election, according to national polls.

The attempt to expel Yarrington is “historically, very unusual,” said Luis Rubio, president of the Center of Research for Development, a Mexico City think tank. “But when the stakes are so high, things can be expedited.”

When the San Antonio Express-News reported allegations against Yarrington in February, Peña Nieto lashed back, suggesting they were an effort to influence the election. Wednesday's efforts to distance the party from the disgraced politician showed a marked change in strategy, most likely in response to growing opposition to the PRI despite its comfortable lead in presidential polls.

“Even though there doesn't seem to be a risk that (Peña Nieto) could lose the election, there is increasingly a risk that he could end up without the majority in the legislature,” Rubio said.

Meanwhile in San Antonio, the investigation into Yarrington associate Fernando Alejandro Cano Martinez, 55, continued Tuesday night as Drug Enforcement Administration agents searched an office on Broadway.

Cano is charged with laundering bribe money in San Antonio paid by Mexican cartels to corrupt politicians. Federal prosecutors announced Cano's indictment at the same time they announced they'd filed a civil lawsuit to seize the South Padre Island condo.

As part of that case, the federal government is also trying to seize 46 acres on La Cantera Parkway in San Antonio. On Tuesday, agents searched the office of the company trying to develop that land, which was purchased for $6.6 million in 2006.

The office in a building at Broadway and Sunset is used by GMC Cantera Corp., one of several entities tied to the land on La Cantera. Corporate filings list as officers Alfredo Vila, a San Antonio accountant and former Mexican banker, and Alberto Berlanga Balado, a former public works director under Yarrington's successor in Tamaulipas. Berlanga's family said he wasn't home, and Vila's wife said he couldn't comment.

Ana Vila said she and her husband were caught off guard when they learned that the feds were trying to seize the property. She said Berlanga and Alfredo knew each other because they are both from Tampico, Tamaulipas.

“We were very surprised,” she said about news that the feds were investigating the Cantera partnership. “We never knew about anything shady.”

After initially denying that agents had spoken to her husband, she later said they did serve a search warrant at the business office on Broadway and spoke with her husband, who was told by the DEA not to talk to reporters.

He is cooperating with the feds, she said, again stressing that he is “simply an employee” of Berlanga.

“We have nothing to hide,” she said. “They told him he was not involved.”

jbuch@express-news.net