Another Mexican border state official arrested

By Jason Buch
Updated 08:27 p.m., Thursday, February 16, 2012

A former spokesman for the governor of a Mexican border state was arrested Tuesday in the Rio Grande Valley.

The U.S. Marshals Service arrested Edmundo Lozano Rendón, 55, for failing to pay a nearly two-decade-old fine, part of his sentence in a money laundering conviction. It's the second arrest this month in Texas of a former Mexican border state official, and comes amid revelations in Mexico that the government there is investigating several former governors.

Lozano Rendón, who until this month was the spokesman for the border city of Reynosa, worked in the early 2000s under former Tamaulipas governor Eugenio Hernández. Hernández is one of three former governors of that state who are under investigation by the Mexican federal government.

It appears the Mexican investigation is dovetailing with one in this country. Court documents filed last week against an accused money launderer in San Antonio alleged that Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba, Hernández's predecessor who's also under investigation in Mexico, took money from the notorious Zetas cartel.

Lozano Rendón served two years in a U.S. prison in the early 1990s after being convicted on money laundering charges in Laredo. He's accused of skipping the country without paying the $7,500 fine a judge assessed as part of his sentence.

Marshals received information that Lozano Rendón was regularly traveling to the U.S. using a fake name, according to a news release from the service. On Tuesday, deputies working with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies set up surveillance at the Edinburg residence of Lozano Rendón's family members and began tailing a Jeep they believed he was in.

“When he stopped the vehicle to get off and do some shopping for his wife, that's when we arrested him,” said Pete Acosta, a spokesman for the Marshals in McAllen.

Another Mexican border state official arrested - San Antonio Express-News