Mexican ambassador in Argentina is forced to return to his country after stealing from a bookstore in Buenos Aires Argentina

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The incident occurred last October, but it has recently come to light after a video was released of the establishment’s security cameras.

The Mexican ambassador to Argentina, Oscar Ricardo Valero Recio Becerra, has been involved in a scandal after the dissemination of a video in which he is caught trying to steal a book from a place in the Recoleta neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

According to La Nación , the incident occurred on October 26 at the El Ateneo bookstore, from which he tried to leave without paying a copy of the biography of Giacomo Cassanova written by Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret, which has a cost in the store close to 40 dollars.

As it transpired, Valero took the book in question and hid it in the pages of a newspaper he held in his hand. Later he put it in one of the lockers for the clientele, bought a pair of compact discs and returned to pick up the book. Finally, when he was passing through the exit door, the establishment’s alarm rang and the security personnel stopped him. After a review of their purchases, it was confirmed that the biography found in their possession was from the bookstore and had not been canceled.

The theft was reported and, after the police verified the identity of the ambassador, he opened a summary of the fact. However, the authorities were forced to release the Mexican, since diplomats cannot be charged or arrested because they enjoy immunity.

“Zero tolerance for dishonesty”

The incident did not transcend at that time, but now it has reached the ears of the Mexican Foreign Ministry, from where Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard asked the Ethics Committee to analyze the case and asked Valero Recio to return to his country. “If it is verified that the video is true, it will be immediately separated from the post. Zero tolerance for dishonesty,”  Ebrard said on Twitter on December 8.

The ambassador has not offered public statements in this regard and his fate is yet to be defined. It is envisaged that the sanction imposed may force him to resign completely from his duties.

Oscar Ricardo Valero, 76, is a career diplomat and has held his position in Buenos Aires since last April. Until then he had stayed away from politics since 2004, when he ended his term as ambassador to Chile.

Valero was undersecretary of Foreign Relations in the Government of President Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988). He has also worked as a teacher and belongs to the Institute of Legal Research of the Autonomous University of Mexico.

The Mexican Foreign Minister summoned the ambassador accused of robbery in Buenos Aires: “Zero tolerance for dishonesty”

Marcelo Ebrad asked the Ethics Committee to analyze the case of Oscar Ricardo Valero Recio Becerra and assured that if the authenticity of the video is verified, the official “will be separated from office immediately”

Valero Recio Becerra was appointed ambassador to Argentina by Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. He is a career diplomat but also a man with academic and political performance in his country.

Who is Oscar Ricardo Valero Recio Becerra

Born in the Mexican Capital, trained in International Relations at the Colegio de México, until his appointment as ambassador to Argentina, Ricardo Valero worked as a full-time researcher at the Institute of Legal Research (IIJ) of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

In academics, he has a long career as a professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the UNAM, at the College of Mexico and at the Autonomous Metropolitan University (UAM), among others. Until June 2019, when he presented credentials to Argentine President Mauricio Macri, he had been teaching subjects such as Theory of International Relations, Political Trends in the Contemporary World, Continuity and Political Change in Latin America and Foreign Policy of Mexico in the aforementioned institutions of higher education.

But in the past, long before being summoned to foreign service by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Ricardo Valero had already had an important diplomatic career.

Oscar Ricardo Valero Recio Becerra during an event in Buenos Aires (Twitter: @EmbaMexAr)
Oscar Ricardo Valero Recio Becerra during an event in Buenos Aires (Twitter: @EmbaMexAr)

He entered the Mexican Foreign Service by contest in 1970 and reached the level of ambassador in 1983. At different times within the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he held the positions of Undersecretary of Planning and Cultural Affairs and Undersecretary of International Cooperation. From 2001 to 2004 he was the Mexican ambassador to Chile.

During the presidency of Miguel de la Madrid (1982-1988), he was deputy secretary of Foreign Affairs. And, in what was perhaps the summit of his diplomatic career, he served as ambassador to the Peace Process of the Contadora Group, a multilateral body established in 1983 by Colombia, Mexico, Panama, and Venezuela, to promote peace in Central America.

It was in this context that he made strong accusations to the pressures of the US government, specifically pointing to Elliot Abrams, then deputy secretary for Inter-American Affairs, which led him to resign. He did not return to a diplomatic position until the period from 2001 to 2004 when he was sent to the Chilean embassy by the then-president Vicente Fox Quesada.

And after a new pause, he was summoned by AMLO for representation in Buenos Aires

Source: actualidad.rt.com, infobae

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