Mickky Pacheco

Francisco Xavier "Mickky" Pacheco (born 12 December 1964) is an Indian politician who is a former three-term member of the Goa Legislative Assembly, representing the Nuvem and Benaulim constituencies and former leader of the Indian National Congress. He held portfolios of Rural Development, Archeology and Archives, Tourism, Captain of Ports, Housing, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, and Sports and Youth Affairs in the state cabinet. forcing him to resign from his ministerial post.

Political career

Pacheco won the 2002 Legislative Assembly election as a member of the United Goans Democratic Party. He later split and formed the United Goans Democratic Party (Secular), which merged with the Bharatiya Janata Party in January 2005. He later joined the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and won the 2007 election. 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 D'sa.

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 . 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. Pacheco claims to be from a "very poor family". He dropped out of school in 1981 when he was in seventh standard, and became a tailor "to support his family". Later he moved to Bahrain and the US.

Reception Pacheco has been involved in various controversies, and has ten criminal cases registered against him. In June 2006, Pacheco slapped a junior engineer Kapil Natekar for not attending his personal assistant's call. Pacheco was sentenced to imprisonment for six months. In June 2010, he was arrested over his alleged involvement in the suicide of his girlfriend Nadia Torrado. 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. His estranged wife Sara Pacheco accused him of bigamy under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005. Other cases against him are road rage, abusing and threatening a traffic police constable in Margao, forgery in property deals, and extortion of from a casino in 2009.

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.