The government boasts that the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) can freeze accounts without a judge’s order. The fine print of the law reveals the operational cost if they make a mistake.
Should a government agency be able to freeze your money without a prior judge’s order? Yes, it curbs money laundering / No, it’s an abuse of power
Claudia Sheinbaum defended the Supreme Court ruling that grants the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) the power to freeze bank accounts without a judge’s order.
From the podium, the mayor assured the private sector that there is no reason for uncertainty and backed up its effectiveness with a figure: 5 billion pesos frozen since October 2024.
The official argument maintains that the measure exclusively targets cartels and that “never in history” has an innocent businessperson been financially blocked, but an innocent ordinary person has been.
The freezing mechanism loses its filter of prior judicial evidence. Historically, freezing a citizen’s funds within the national territory required a judge to review the evidence presented by the Public Prosecutor’s Office or an explicit international request.
With the newly approved criteria, the anti-money laundering agency, which reports directly to the Ministry of Finance, gains the administrative power to halt the financial operations of any individual without having to prove a crime in court beforehand.
The president’s promise of infallibility clashes head-on with the reform to the Amparo Law, which the president herself touted at the same press conference. The head of the Executive Branch celebrated that now, if an account holder claims an injustice in the freezing of their funds, they no longer receive an automatic injunction preventing them from accessing their money. The new regulations require them to face a resolution process that takes a maximum of six months.
Legal protection against potential administrative errors has been deliberately dismantled. Now, if your account is frozen and you are prohibited from using your money, you will have to wait six months to eat again.
The Presidency’s argument rests on an operational reality with an undeniable “supposed” counterweight: money laundering networks empty their balances in minutes if they are notified with a prior court order. However, the mechanism designed to cut off the flow of funds to organized crime imposes the same penalty on any legitimate business.
Six months without access to banks to pay salaries or settle taxes means the mathematical bankruptcy of a company, long before a judge determines whether the funds were legitimate or not.
The federal government has already frozen 5 billion pesos operating under this unilateral and illegal scheme. The dilemma lies not in the need to combat money laundering, but in the nullification of the right to a defense.
The private sector has to stake its survival on the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) never making a single mistake in its investigations, and the average citizen will have to pray that their money is never taken due to an “error.” Because if he does, the law now guarantees that the affected person will spend six months unable to use their own money.
Source: Corto Politico
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