Suspicious home buy went unnoticed

Jailed Mexican labor leader linked to properties in San Diego County

By Sandra Dibble & Lily Leung • U-T 12:45 p.m.March 23, 2013

One of the properties in question in Coronado Cays.


Elba Esther Gordillo’s upscale Coronado getaway was hardly a secret. The location of the Mexican labor leader’s southern California residence for years was known to friends and foes alike.
But now the six-bedroom house in Coronado Cays sits unoccupied, key evidence in a Mexican government investigation centered on the 68-year-old Gordillo, longtime head of the 1.4 million-member National Union of Education Workers. Since Gordillo’s Feb. 26th arrest by Mexican federal agents, she has remained behind bars in Mexico City, charged with embezzling close to $160 million in union funds to underwrite a lavish lifestyle.
Nearly a month after her detention, questions linger on both sides of the border: How could Gordillo and a small circle of alleged collaborators have gotten away with it for so long? With an annual reported income in recent years of less than $23,000, how did Gordillo and her multi-million dollar expenditures manage for years to evade government scrutiny in Mexico? And how would she have been able to transfer funds to pay cash for costly homes in San Diego without calling the attention of U.S. banks and government agencies?
Mexican authorities are connecting Gordillo to two properties on Coronado Cays, both paid for with cash. A search of San Diego County property records by U-T San Diego found documents that link two Chula Vista houses to Gordillo’s grandsons, both involved in politics in Mexico, one of them currently serving as a federal legislator. Documents connect one of the addresses directly to Gordillo’s Coronado residence.
Elba Esther Gordillo In announcing Gordillo’s arrest late last month, Mexico’s attorney general said that investigators from Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit found union funds were used to pay for $3 million of Neiman Marcus charges on Gordillo’s account and more than $17,000 for bills to plastic surgery clinics and hospitals in California. Another $2 million was deposited to an account in the name of Comercializadora TTS de Mexico, a Mexican company listed on county property records as the owner of Gordillo’s residence and another property across the street.
“It’s a huge win for people who are following the money trail,” said Celina Realuyo, an assistant professor of national security affairs at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. “It is going to be really interesting to see who else is implicated.”
John Owens, formerly head of the criminal division at the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego who is now an attorney in private practice, said one question certain to arise north of the border is “did anyone in the United States help to facilitate these crimes? These types of crimes are not usually committed alone.”
Though Gordillo kept a low profile in San Diego, many knew she had a house here. Even teachers union members from Tijuana carrying protest signs had no problem locating the house. A YouTube video uploaded in 2010 shows a small group outside Gordillo’s Coronado Cays residence, and speaking with her through an intercom. “We know that you bought this house with our funds,” one protester is heard saying.
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