Francisco Pacheco (politician)

Pacheco won the 2002 Legislative Assembly election as a member of the United Goans Democratic Party.[5] He later split and formed the United Goans Democratic Party (Secular), which merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party in January 2005.[6] He later joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and won the 2007 election.[5] Prior to the 2012 Legislative Assembly election, he left the NCP and joined the Goa Vikas Party (GVP).[7] Pacheco's wife Viola Pacheco was made the GVP president in 2012 he quit Goa Vikas Party and joined the Goa Su-raj Party; he lost the Nuvem Constituency in the hands of sitting ZP Member of Nuvem Wilfred Dsa.[8][9]

In 1981, while he was in seventh standard, Pacheco dropped out of school and became a tailor "to support his family". As per his affidavit in the 2012 Legislative Assembly election, he has assets worth ₹5.96 crore (equivalent to ₹9.0 crore or US$1.3 million in 2019).[10] He was an associate of former Chief Minister of Goa Churchill Alemao, but defeated him in the 2002 election.[11] Several criminal cases are registered against Pacheco; he was also alleged by the United States (US) authorities of his involvement in illegal immigration of Goan youth to the US and money laundering racket.[10][11]

Belonging to a Catholic family,[12] Pacheco claims to be from a "very poor family".[13] He dropped out of school in 1981 when he was in seventh standard, and became a tailor "to support his family".[10][14] Later he moved to Bahrain and the US.[10] Pacheco says that he is still a fashion designer, and owns a showroom in Paris.[13] Pacheco is a fan of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg, and was a bass guitarist in a local band.[13] Pacheco was the owner of a football club Fransa-Pax FC, which was dissolved in March 2006 as a protest against the All India Football Federation.[15]

Pacheco has been involved in various controversies,[10] and has ten criminal cases registered against him.[14] In June 2006, Pacheco slapped a junior engineer Kapil Natekar for not attending his personal assistant's call.[4] Pacheco was sentenced to imprisonment for six months.[4] In June 2010, he was arrested over his alleged involvement in the suicide of his girlfriend Nadia Torrado.[11] He was forced to resign from his ministerial post in the then Indian National Congress-led government, but was later given a clean chit due to absence of evidence.[11] His estranged wife Sara Pacheco accused him of bigamy under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.[11] Other cases against him are road rage, abusing and threatening a traffic police constable in Margao, forgery in property deals, and extortion of ₹3.69 lakh (equivalent to ₹7.5 lakh or US$10,000 in 2019) from a casino in 2009.[10][11]

Pacheco was probed by the Central Bureau of Investigation when the United States' Bureau of Diplomatic Security alleged his involvement in illegal immigration of Goan youth and a money laundering racket.[10][11]