Richer than God?

Ciro Gómez Leyva is making his second appearance in the Mex Files this morning.  David Agren, in a recent Catholic News Service piece on the Legionnaires of Christ, mentions the respected journalist in passing while writing on the fallout of the Legionnaires of Christ scandal.  Gomez Leyva, then at Canal 40, was one of the first in the Mexican media to report on the financial misdeeds of Marcial Maciel Degollado and the Legionnaires. The upshot was, between pressure from the Zedillo administration, and pro-Legionnaire advertisers, Canal 40 lost about a half a million U.S. dollars in advertising revenue.

Agren followed up his CNS story on his own website, mentioning possible legal action against the Legionnaires for, among other things, “pedophilia, the corruption of minors, money laundering and organized crime.”

The money laundering and organized crime ties of the Legionnaires were the subject of an article by Alexandra Gutiérrez in last week’s Proceso (2005-05-23), which, coupled with the statements by Fauzi Hamdam, a law school rector close to the missing Diego Fernández de Cevallos that Jefe Diego was nabbed by a “very powerful group with extensive resources.” Seeing FeCal has denied that Jefe Diego was snatched by the narcos, and the theory that he was grabbed by the Army or one of the political parties doesn’t seem particularly plausible, one wonders if the Jefe’s ties to the discredited religious money laundering operation might be ripe for speculation.