Salinas Pliego in Trouble Again

Mexican Finance Minister Francisco Gil Diaz asked prosecutors to bring criminal charges against billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego because he used privileged information to trade shares. Salinas Pliego (no relation to the disgraced former president) owns TV Azteca, and a banking and retail empire. In a separate case, Mexican regulators fined Azteca, Salinas Pliego and board member Pedro Padilla $2.3 million for securities law violations. The government’s latest case against Salinas Pliego goes beyond civil charges filed by the SEC, which in January accused him and Azteca of securities fraud for his part in a deal that earned him $109 million. The government’s case will test Mexican legislation for the first time since it made insider-trading a criminal offense. The charges carry a prison term of two to seven years. TV Azteca has separately filed a criminal suit against Gil Diaz accusing him of trying to block a program criticizing a 1994 government bailout of Mexico’s banks and the 2001 sale of Banamex to Citigroup for $12.5 billion.