Saturday, August 22, 2020

3 FORMER PRESIDENTS OF MEXICO ACCUSED OF CORRUPTION

Lozoya takes the lid off the gutter in leaked complaint

By Chivis Martinez from Reforma

Borderland Beat
August 20, 2020

In the criminal complaint he filed on August 11 with the Attorney General's Office, Emilio Lozoya Austin accused 16 politicians and former senior officials, including former presidents of the Republic Enrique Peña, Felipe Calderón and Carlos Salinas of participating in different acts of corruption and influence peddling and of having caused damage to the national heritage due to their crimes.
 
It also tags Ricardo Anaya and José Antonio Meade, two former presidential candidates who ran in 2018 against Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

He also pointed to Peña and his Secretary of the Treasury, Luis Videgaray, as heading up  the corruption operations.

"Between Peña Nieto and Videgaray there was an agreement to implement an organized apparatus of power that -from the highest spheres of the regime- implemented what was necessary to obtain benefits that affect the sovereignty of Mexico, subjecting it to individuals and groups, nationals and foreigners," he said in the statement surreptitiously posted on social media.

The FGR [federal attorney general office] denies leaking the document.

The former director of Pemex based his main allegations on millionaire bribes from Odebrecht and its Braskem subsidiary, which were handed over to different officials from the previous two six-year terms.

"By 2013, Odebrecht already had the President (Peña) on his side. In 2013, the relationship between Odebrecht and the Mexican State was not one of contracts, but one of power. Odebrecht knew of their influence and subjection, he did not to lose it - nor did I want to lose it - since I was actively participating in the country's energy policy, "he denounced.

Between 2012 and 2014, Lozoya assures that the Brazilians made him at least three important deliveries of money, for amounts of 3 million 150 thousand dollars, 5 million 951 thousand dollars and 84 million pesos.

The first installment served to pay 1.6 million dollars to electoral consultants for the 2012 presidential campaign and the remainder used for bribes  on orders from Peña and Videgaray, for PAN legislators to vote in favor of structural reforms.

Although he says that this ended in an "extortion by the PAN political party" to obtain more money and positions of power.

According to his complaint, the money was delivered to Ricardo Anaya and his private secretary, Osiris Hernández; also to former senators Ernesto Cordero, Jorge Luis Lavalle, Salvador Vega, Francisco Domínguez and Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, the latter two are currently Governors of Querétaro and Tamaulipas, respectively.

It states that the former Secretary of Energy with Felipe Calderón, José Antonio Meade, and José Antonio González Anaya, former director of Pemex, also received bribes.

He points out to former President Calderón that he granted Braskem inexplicable conditions to install the Ethylene XXI plant in Veracruz, which caused millions in losses to the nation's heritage.

Yesterday Calderón, Ricardo Anaya and José Antonio Meade, separately, denied Lozoya and accused the federal government of carrying out an illegal and media handling of the case.

"It is an instrument of revenge and political persecution," Calderón said.
"I am going to sue Emilio Lozoya for moral damages ... I am certain that there is no basis for the infamous lie," Anaya said.

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