Emilio Lozoya has started to pull the blanket. The former director of Pemex, accused of corruption in the Odebrecht case, has filed a complaint with the Attorney General's Office (FGR) in which he explicitly accuses the former Secretary of Finance, Luis Videgaray, and former President Enrique Peña Nieto of being responsible direct to receive and manage part of the bribes of the Brazilian construction company. At least 100 million pesos would have gone to the PRI electoral campaign in 2012. While another 400 were destined to buy votes from congressmen, as announced this Thursday by the attorney general Alejandro Gertz Manero.
The Lozoya case thus proceeds along the established channels after confirming his willingness to collaborate as a kind of protected witness in exchange for benefits or reductions in his positions and those of his family. The former director is accused of the crimes of money laundering, criminal association and bribery, derived from millionaire bribes from both Odebrecht and Altos Hornos. His mother, sister and wife are also investigated for the corruption scheme.
After the first two hearings before the judge two weeks ago, the defense has continued negotiating with the Prosecutor's Office the continuation of the collaboration agreement, according to which the former director of Pemex must provide sufficient data and names to be able to process his superiors, that is, the dome of the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto. The strategy of his lawyers, embodied in the first two hearings, was to present Lozoya as a victim, someone who was "intimidated, pressured, influenced and exploited" by an "organized apparatus of power."
The thesis of aiming for the highest is confirmed by the accusations announced this Tuesday by the attorney general, who detailed that Lozoya denounced that "there were a series of bribes that exceed 100 million pesos that were mainly used for the 2012 campaign for the presidency of the Republic. And that the one who was later president (Peña Nieto) and his secretary of the Treasury (Luis Videgaray), are the people that this individual (Lozoya) points out were the ones who ordered that this money be delivered to several foreign advisers who collaborated with the campaign. ”.
The hypothetical prosecution of the leadership of the PRI government for these crimes has, in any case, an important obstacle. The Office of the Special Prosecutor for Electoral Crimes (FEDE) determined in May the prescription of the criminal action for the alleged illegal financing of the presidential campaign of Enrique Peña Nieto in 2012. Three years ago, when the first denunciations of Odebrecht's direct accusing Lozoya, who at that time was the coordinator of the international area of the campaign, to receive money for the electoral contest, the PRD filed a first complaint with the FEDE. The prosecutor Valdemar Gonzalez dismissed it, considering that the five-year statute of limitations had been met.
Lozoya's complaints, in any case, go beyond the scope of the electoral campaign. The former director of Pemex once again accuses Peña Nieto and Videgaray of using more than 400 million pesos to corrupt legislators and buy votes during the PRI administration. "In that case there is talk of 120 million pesos that were ordered by the same people to go to a deputy and five senators," said Gertz Manero. The prosecutor also speaks of another item of 84 million pesos that was given "to several legislators, a finance secretary of a political party and also more than 200 million pesos to direct them to the approval of structural reforms." Some leaks to the Mexican media indicate that the beneficiaries of the bites would be senators who are members of the Energy Commission. The so-called Pact for Mexico was the great flag of the Government of Peña Nieto. A package of constitutional reforms that covered various sectors and that went ahead thanks to the vote of the majority of parliamentary forces at the time.
The details known this Tuesday are in tune with both the multiple leaks that have occurred since the beginning of the case, and the information that President López Obrador was making public during his mornings. The names that have sounded the most during these weeks among those accused of allegedly receiving bribes in exchange for voting in favor, among others of the 2013 energy reform, are Ricardo Anaya, then a federal deputy for the PAN, and five other PAN senators: Ernesto Cordero, Francisco Domínguez Servién, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, Salvador Vega Casillas and José Luis Lavalle Maury.