Theft reports taint the Institute to Give Back to the People the Stolen

An auction of the Institute to Give Back to the People the Stolen, in Mexico INDEP

Who robbed the Institute to Give Back to the People the Stolen (Indep)?

That is the question that has caused amazement and amazement in Mexico.

The body in charge of turning former government waste and treasures seized from drug trafficking into social policy for the poorest is prey to the looting of its own workers, embezzlement due to mismanagement and rigged contracts that threaten to bankrupt it.

The rosary of anomalies has been uncovered by its own director, Jaime Cárdenas, in an explosive resignation letter that this week has blown up the latest scandal in the Andrés Manuel López Obrador Administration.

As the president has publicly discredited one of his most loyal collaborators, echoes of stolen jewelry, razed vaults and rigged auctions tarnish the reputation of one of the government's flagship institutions.

Cárdenas explained how thefts were perpetrated in his letter of resignation.

After the seizure of jewels from crime, the Attorney General's Office (FGR) sent the pieces to Indep to be safeguarded and eventually auctioned.

A 14-karat white gold bracelet with 37 ruby ​​inlays entered the vault of the Institute and later another with only 33 inlays came out.

A white gold necklace with diamond sparks arrived and it was found broken and with fakes gemstones, six grams lighter than originally delivered.

In total there are 23 jewels damaged according to a complaint presented to the Prosecutor's Office and whose details have been leaked to the press.

The director of the Institute, who will leave his post this month and will be replaced by the director of the Lottery, Ernesto Priego, pointed out that the thefts could have been committed by the employees themselves in collusion with the companies that guarded and rented the warehouses.

The same companies that, according to Cárdenas, have closed multi-year contracts that threaten Indep's finances.

The acquisitions, leases and services plan for 2020, prepared by Cárdenas' predecessor, Ricardo Rodríguez, accounts for a projected expenditure of almost 1,803 million pesos (more than 80 million dollars).

Almost half, 900 million, was spent on contracts to protect personal property such as jewelry.

"All of this can lead to acts of millionaire corruption," Cárdenas said in an interview with the newspaper

.

"This was a fact that should have been denounced by the previous director," he added about the theft of jewelry, although he assured that "he had no elements" to point directly to his predecessor.

"Cars, ranches, residences, cash, everything is going to be returned to the people."

This is how López Obrador announced the creation of the body in May 2019, which was not formally established until January of this year.

The president's promise was to make confiscations transparent to criminals and turn the seizures into resources for social programs.

In reality, Mexico already had an agency in charge of managing seizures and auctioning them, the Property Administration and Disposal Service (SAE), which depended on the Ministry of Finance.

The opposition called the change to the SAE letterhead populist.

The ruling bloc defended the name change because it was better to clearly describe the functions of the institute.

Indep also manages various types of assets.

From government buildings to liquidations of public companies.

This inheritance from the old SAE threatens to bankrupt it.

Its constitution was accompanied by a reform to the extinction of ownership, the legal framework that allows the Government to appropriate the properties recovered by the prosecutors and the police that are later auctioned.

"The figure was not well designed and in practice it is inoperative to fight corruption," says Eduardo Bohórquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana.

Confiscations from crime previously had to be used to repair the damage of the victims.

A legal change now allows part of the resources to be channeled to government secretariats such as Welfare, Health, Government, Finance and Education.

The Social Cabinet has two options for allocating the money: social policies and priority policies.

"We are talking about a parallel budget that is spent as they please, without going through Congress," says Miguel Alfonso Meza, researcher at Mexicanos Contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad.

"Indep's biggest problem is not only having an untidy administration, but also the discretion in the allocation of resources, if there is not total transparency, there is a risk of becoming a petty cash," says Bohórquez.

In 2019, the institute raised 1,022 million pesos in auctions, far from the goal of 1,200 million raised by López Obrador and much less than the 1,696 million obtained in 2018. According to official data, only in 2015, the Government obtained almost eight times more than last year: 8,075 million pesos.

For this year, Indep has collected 542 million pesos in auctions until May 10.

To these should be added almost 170 million from five "solidarity auctions" that did not enter the last cut.

According to Cárdenas's version, López Obrador was aware of his concerns at least since July, when he sent him a first monthly report.

"He listened to me and said 'go ahead," revealed the official, who proposed the dismissal of 78 employees as part of a clean-up of the institution.

His departure, however, has portrayed the style of López Obrador, with whom he often clashed by calling him too "academic" and for refusing to restructure Indep without adherence to the law.

“They believed that I was going to have total and blind obedience to what they told me,” Cárdenas assured.

"It is more than anything a political issue," said López Obrador on Thursday, who has overwhelmed Cárdenas with every question from the press.

"He is right, we ask for blind loyalty to the transformation project (...) it is loyalty to the people, not to me," said the president.

Eight months after its creation, Indep has had two directors.

Rodríguez, who left the institution in June without the reasons being publicly clarified, has said that Cárdenas's complaints are based on assumptions and that his management was audited.

"I have clean hands," he assured.

The short life of the institute has been marked by theatricality.

In February, in the manner of the contest programs, the attorney general, Alejandro Gertz, presented a check for 2,000 million pesos to Indep at one of the presidential press conferences.

Far from a prize, it was an obligation of law, although the institution has not yet been able to exercise the resources.

In May, the sale of a 3,375-square-meter mansion owned by Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a famous drug trafficker known as

, was announced for 49 million pesos

The Institute also financed the prizes for the “symbolic” raffle for the presidential plane on September 15.

Cárdenas's divorce with the Administration may become the institute's most remembered chapter.

A dozen administrative and “two or three” criminal complaints against employees tarnish the reputation of an emblem of the so-called Fourth Transformation.

"It's like in a couple, where one party has an expectation of the other and those expectations are not satisfied in the end," the official explained in an interview.

"I want to go as in marriages, in peace," he concluded.