Two Mexican Judges Suspended for Protecting Cartel-Connected Governor Wanted in Texas

Two federal judges in Mexico have been suspended and removed from their offices as authorities investigate their role in court decisions that protected a former state governor wanted in the United States on money laundering charges.

Judges Lourdes Guadalupe Tovar and Dulce Janeth Vega were formally notified that Mexico’s Federal Judicial Disciplinary Tribunal had suspended them while an internal investigation moves forward. The two judges refused to leave their offices in Ciudad Victoria after receiving the order and were ultimately removed by security personnel.

The investigation centers on a series of rulings issued by the judges that benefited former Tamaulipas Governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores. Those rulings included injunctions and other legal protections that blocked efforts to extradite him to Texas, where he is wanted by U.S. authorities.

Hernandez served as governor of Tamaulipas from 2005 through 2010 as a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI. In 2015, federal prosecutors in the United States filed an indictment accusing him of money laundering. Since that time, he has been considered a fugitive from U.S. justice.

Authorities in Tamaulipas, which at the time was governed by the National Action Party (PAN), arrested Hernandez in 2017 on embezzlement charges. He remained imprisoned for several years while contesting efforts to send him to Texas to face the U.S. case. In 2023, a series of controversial court decisions resulted in his release, allowing him to remain free in Mexico. The rulings issued by Tovar and Vega also halted extradition proceedings against him.

According to federal prosecutors in the Southern District of Texas, Hernandez is accused of laundering money connected to cartel bribes. Investigators allege that he diverted government funds, moved the money into the United States, and used it to buy property.

Hernandez is one of two former governors from Tamaulipas who have been accused of accepting payments from drug cartels in exchange for protection for the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas. For years, both Hernandez and his predecessor, Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba, were able to live openly in Mexico despite being wanted in Texas, even receiving police protection while facing U.S. charges.

Yarrington was eventually captured by authorities in Italy in 2017. He was transferred to the United States, where he later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 108 months in prison. After serving most of that sentence, U.S. officials deported him to Mexico last year. He is now facing additional organized crime charges in Mexican courts.

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