EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – Chihuahua state authorities have arrested the mayor of Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, on corruption charges.
Cynthia Marina Delgado Ceballos allegedly appropriated real estate and sold it without soliciting approval from the city council nor depositing the money into any city accounts, Abelardo Valenzuela Holguin, the state’s anti-corruption prosecutor, said in a news conference on Monday.
“The mayor and the former secretary of government, now a fugitive, on various dates appropriated and disposed of real estate without evidence that the profits from the sale went to the treasury,” Valenzuela said. He said the investigation so far has identified $125,000 in alleged illicit profits with many more transactions under scrutiny.
Video obtained by Border Report shows state police officers taking a handcuffed Delgado from a government building into a waiting car. Wearing a bulletproof vest, she was transported to a prison in the state capital of Chihuahua City.
Valenzuela called Delgado a flight risk and a potential threat to cooperating witnesses, so she would be detained. The prosecutor only identified the fugitive former city secretary by her initials: S.I.H.P.
Nuevo Casas Grandes is 100 miles southwest of Juarez and 50 miles south of the Mexico-New Mexico border. The town and its suburb of Casas Grandes drew international attention last May when alleged drug cartel members murdered and mutilated an alleged rapist and hung his naked body from an entrance arch over a highway.
State officials fired the entire municipal police force serving both communities after finding out someone had turned off the security cameras and closed the streets for the cartel.
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