Santiago Acosta Álvarez

Practice Areas

Santiago Acosta Álvarez is a Senior Associate at Creel, García-Cuéllar, Aiza y Enriquez and a member of our Investigations & Compliance area of practice. Mr. Acosta is frequently involved in the conduction of complex international anti-corruption and white-collar investigations, having substantial experience across both, the compliance and investigation areas.

Career

Prior to joining Creel, Mr. Acosta served as Director of Investigations of White-Collar Crimes for the Federal Tax Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduría Fiscal de la Federación), a part of the Mexico’s Ministry of the Treasury (Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público). While serving at the Ministry of Treasury, Mr. Acosta was the leading prosecutor in the first oral legal proceeding (juicio oral) initiated for the commission of a white-collar crime, where he successfully achieved the indictment of the three individuals. In addition to his experience in the Mexican Ministry of the Treasury , Mr. Acosta has worked at prominent Mexican corporate law firms and in a well-known criminal litigation law firm. Mr. Acosta's combined knowledge and expertise in corporate law and criminal investigations and litigation, bestows him with a valuable scarce professional profile which has become essential for our Law Firm and Investigations and Compliance team.

Because of Mr. Acosta’s atypical capabilities, he has acted as a “key player” in preventing and providing legal counselling to our clients to successfully prevent potential corporate criminal liabilities.

Publications

Mr. Acosta co-authored the Mexico Bribery & Corruption chapter in the Global Legal Insights 2019 and inn 2022 authored the chapter entitled “El Papel de los Abogado en el Combate a la Corrupción: Un Debate Impostergable.” in the 102nd Edition of the “Pauta” magazine, issued by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) (Mexico Chapter).

Personal

Mr. Acosta studied at the Universidad Iberoamericana and obtained his Law Degree (JD) and professional license (cédula profesional) from Mexico’s Ministry of Education in 2012. Additionally, Mr. Acosta holds a master’s degree in criminal procedure law.

Work Highlights

In 2018, Mr. Acosta attended the “Joint GAFILAT / FATF Assessor Training”, held at Santiago, Chile, where he was considered by the FATF Secretariat as a suitable candidate assessor for future mutual evaluations, in representation of the Mexican Government. Additionally, he participated in numerous workshops and seminars on financial investigation techniques imparted by the U.S. Department of Justice and Internal Revenue Service.