The fledgling Citizen’s Movement (MC) party that scored significant successes in last year’s mid-term elections in Jalisco – led by poster boy Enrique Alfaro, the mayor of Guadalajara – may be facing the biggest political crisis of its existence following the arrest of the presumed financial operator of the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), Sergio Kurt Schmidt Sandoval.
Federal police this week detained Schmidt (alias “El Pistolas” and Sergio “N”) at a house in Ciudad Bugambilias in Zapopan. According to a press bulletin issued by the Department of Defense (Sedena), he is believed to be an influential figure within the CJNG, and ranks number 101 on a list of 122 key organized crime targets identified by the federal government.
A businessman and well-known figure among the state’s political elite, Schmidt was frequently seen attending events and getting the ear of senior officials.
As a result of his friendships with members of the MC, Schmidt managed to obtain jobs for several close family members in two metro-area municipal governments.
A few days after the arrest, Guadalajara city officials confirmed that Schmidt Sandoval’s son, Kurt Schmidt Diaz, a law graduate from the ITESO university, had been on the city payroll for the past year, earning a salary of around 25,000 pesos a month in the economic promotion department, working in “technical support.” At a press conference Wednesday, a city official said moves had already started to lay him off due to “absenteeism.”
Further revelations show that Schmidt Diaz was employed from October 2012 until June 2013 at Tlajomulco city hall – also run by the MC – as a “specialist” in the social welfare and development department.
In addition, Schmidt’s wife and sister were both on the Tlajomulco payroll at various times. His wife, Adriana Diaz Guzman, worked in the public security department between January and September 2013, earning a salary of 38,276 pesos, at a time when Alfaro was still mayor of that municipality. Sister Cecila Olga Schmidt Sandoval was registered as a “supervisor” in Tlajomulco in 2006.
The Schmidt family have also done business with Tlajomulco city hall, with records showing that Adriana Diaz Guzman received 44,402 pesos in 2013 for a “property rental.”
The political connection also extends to Puerto Vallarta, where last year the former MC mayor handed over 6.3 million pesos to help stage the “Fandango” multi-media show, a production that Schmidt is reportedly heavily involved in.
The arrest of the presumed financial operation of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels seems to have taken Guadalajara city hall and Alfaro by complete surprise. Various senior city figures issued hefty denials that they were close to Schmidt and aware of his involvement in organized crime.
Some have accused Jalisco Attorney General Eduardo Almaguer of playing up the Citizen’s Movement’s connection to Schmidt to “politicize” the situation. State congressman Ismael del Toro, the mayor of Tlajomulco when Schmidt Diaz was on the payroll, pointed out that the alleged CJNG operative appeared to have relations with politicians of all parties, including the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
It was also revealed this week that Schmidt was most likely involved in what at the time was biggest bank robbery in Mexico’s history.
The heist, carried out in Lagos de Moreno in 1981, netted 96 million pesos and was organized by a group of five students, supposedly led by Jesus Gonzalez Marquez, the brother of former Jalisco governor Emilio Gonzalez Marquez.
Jesus Gonzalez died in an automobile accident in January 1982 just before the other four suspected participants, including Schmidt, were arrested.
Schmidt confessed to the crime but served only a short time in jail, as the sentences were eventually overturned. According to some reports, influential figures intervened to free the students, who had apparently based their crime on a Hollywood movie plot.
The connection between Schmidt and the Gonzalez Marquez family endured through to Emilio Gonzalez’s 2007-2013 tenure as governor.
Political commentators this week remembered how Schmidt cut an influential figure in that administration, helping to smooth the way for Gonzalez’s National Action Party (PAN) to develop a close relationship with the MC to battle the powerful PRI.