Antonio Castañón
Antonio Castanon (or Toño Castañon) is a Mexican businessman.
Alleged money laundering
In November, 1995, Antonio Castañon and Paulina Castañon, Raúl Salinas's wife, were arrested in Geneva, Switzerland after attempting to withdraw US$84 million from an account owned by Raúl Salinas de Gortari, brother of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari.[1] Their capture led to the unveiling of a vast family fortune spread around the world amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars. A report by the U.S. General Accounting Office indicated that over $90 million were transferred out of Mexico and into private bank accounts in Switzerland and London, through a complex set of transactions between 1992 and 1994, using a private investment company named Trocca, all with the help of Citibank and its affiliates.[2] In 2008, the government of Switzerland turned over $74 million, out of the $110 million in frozen bank accounts held by Trocca to the government of Mexico. The Swiss Justice Ministry indicated that the Mexican government had demonstrated that $66 million of the funds had been misappropriated, and the funds, with interest, were returned to Mexico. The bank accounts were held at Pictet & Cie, Citibank Zurich, Julius Baer Bank, and Banque privée Edmond de Rothschild in Geneva and Zurich.[3] Other funds were returned to third parties, including Mexican billionaire Carlos Peralta Quintero, who had given the funds to set up the investment company. Antonio and Paulina Castañon were released a couple weeks after the arrest.
References
- Delgado de Cantú, Gloria M.; Rosa Guadalupe Pérez Rangel (2003). Historia de México, Volume 2. Pearson Educación. p. 562. ISBN 978-970-26-0356-6.
- "GAO Report" (PDF). www.gao.gov. October 1998. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-08-21. Retrieved 2010-10-16.
Bibliography
- Oppenheimer, Andres. Bordering on Chaos. New York: Little, Brown, 1996. ISBN 0-316-65095-1