Mexico City Judge Overturns Account Freeze for Former Tamaulipas Governor

A federal judge ordered the unblocking of former PRI governor of Tamaulipas Tomás Yarrington's bank accounts, based on jurisprudence 46/2018, which was invalidated last Monday by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN). The decision was issued on March 31 — a week before the SCJN ruling — by Ulises Oswaldo Rivera González, Fourth District Judge on Administrative Matters in Mexico City. In resolving the amparo case 886/2025, the judge ruled that the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), of the Secretariat of Finance, did not comply with what is established in the Credit Institutions Law when it blocked the former governor's accounts. He pointed out that the blocking was not in response to the fulfillment of international commitments assumed by the Mexican State, as established by law and the SCJN's criteria, but rather to an investigation of a national nature. “This undermines the principle of legal certainty, since, as the Second Chamber of the SCJN held in jurisprudence 46/2018, the aforementioned authority cannot be used when the reason for the blocking has a strictly national origin,” the judge justified. Yarrington filed the amparo lawsuit on July 16, 2025. He argued that Yarrington carried out operations within the national financial system unrelated to lawful activities, which is why his inclusion in the list was determined. The judge concluded that the UIF based its resolution on facts from national authorities and not foreign ones. Therefore, he argued that legal certainty was violated. He indicated that the blocking of accounts can only be applied as a precautionary measure in procedures linked to international commitments, and not when the origin of the case is strictly national. The ruling does not prevent the head of the UIF from issuing new resolutions regarding Yarrington's bank accounts, as long as they are properly founded. It is expected that the decision will be challenged before a collegiate court by the UIF, based on the new SCJN criterion. Who is Tomás Yarrington, former governor of Tamaulipas, and what is he accused of? Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, who was a member of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), was governor of Tamaulipas from 1999 to 2005. In 2006, the former PRI member 'raised his hand' to run for president, but it was Roberto Madrazo who vied for the position. In April 2025, Yarrington was deported from the United States to Mexico after serving a nine-year prison sentence for money laundering. Upon his arrival in the country, he was arrested and imprisoned in a maximum-security prison. In Mexico, the former governor of Tamaulipas is charged with crimes against health and operations with illicitly sourced proceeds. In his trial in the United States, he admitted to receiving more than 3.5 million dollars in bribes and used them to buy properties in the United States. How did Yarrington's arrest occur? Contrary to any action movie, the former governor of Tamaulipas was arrested in Italy in 2017 when he attempted to enter the country with apocryphal documentation. The government of the United States demanded his extradition to comply with an arrest warrant obtained in May 2013, as part of the investigation known as Operation Marea Verde. It was not until April 2018 that the former Mexican official was transferred to the US, where he faced a trial and, until March 2021, reached an agreement with the US authorities, pleaded guilty to the crimes attributed to him in exchange for handing over millions of dollars, properties, and information to receive a reduced sentence. He argued that the UIF overstepped its functions by including him, in December 2019, in the list of blocked persons. The UIF could challenge based on the new SCJN criterion. The UIF defended its decision.