Rosario Robles, secretary of Social Development in the Government of Peña Nieto, before entering prison.Madla Hartz / EFE
Rosario Robles, Secretary of Social Development in the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto, has agreed to become a collaborating witness for the Prosecutor's Office, according to sources close to the defense confirmed to this newspaper on Monday.
Mexican policy, in preventive detention for more than a year, has taken advantage of the so-called opportunity criterion, by which the Prosecutor's Office can offer you benefits in exchange for information.
According to one of his lawyers, Robles plans to declare that the previous government, headed by former Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray, diverted millionaire resources to various PRI electoral campaigns.
Robles' cooperation opens another hole in the circle of Peña Nieto, already badly hit by the continuous accusations of corruption, and threatens to tighten the fence on the former president even more.
The jailed official will point to Videgaray, Peña Nieto's right hand, as responsible for the diversion of resources to the campaigns, including the one that returned the PRI to power in 2012, according to the lawyer Sergio Arturo Ramírez, who has ruled out implicating the former president in the plot.
According to this version, the illegal financing would also have been used in the intermediate elections of 2015, as well as in the elections of the State of Mexico of 2017 and the presidential election of 2018, with José Antonio Meade as the PRI candidate.
In the case of these last electoral appointments, the resources would have come from the so-called Master Scam, a network of corruption that diverted 15,000 million pesos (673 million dollars) through the offices of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Bank National Works.
“The data that I have is that the Secretary of the Treasury was the one who gave the instruction to triangulate the million-dollar operations of the Master Scam and that they went to give electoral campaigns.
And that will be revealed by the former official as part of her agreement with the Attorney General's Office ”, said the lawyer.
The decision to collaborate represents a shift in Robles' judicial strategy.
Until now, the former secretary had rejected the offers of the Attorney General's Office (FGR) and affirmed that the investigation opened against her was the product of a political revenge by the current government.
To explain the change of course, sources close to the defense say that she is "tired and ill" and assure that "in the next few days" a "ministerial statement" from the former high position will be released.
Head of the Ministry of Social Development between the end of 2012 and mid-2015, she entered prison in August 2019 after being accused of a crime of omission in the case of the Master Scam, which caused serious financial damage to public finances.
Robles follows in the footsteps of another Cabinet colleague, Emilio Lozoya, former CEO of Pemex.
The official used the criteria of opportunity in July after being arrested in Spain accused of money laundering, bribery and criminal association.
In his statement before the Mexican Public Ministry, Lozoya pointed out to former President Peña Nieto and Luis Videgaray that he had full knowledge of millionaire bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht to a string of Mexican politicians from various parties in order, among other things, to facilitate the approval of the energy reform and obtain public works contracts.
Robles' cooperation represents another victory for the Prosecutor's Office in its attempt to investigate the rampant corruption of the previous Administration.
A couple of weeks ago, the agency's intention to accuse Peña Nieto of treason, bribery and electoral fraud was disclosed.
On the other hand, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has supported a consultation of questioned legality to decide whether to try the last leaders.
It is scheduled to be held in the summer of next year.
The criterion of opportunity, one of the keys to the success of the Prosecutor's Office, is contemplated in Article 21 of the Mexican Constitution and in the National Code of Criminal Procedures.
Under this
quid pro quo
scheme
, the defendant must provide information on higher-ranking figures leading to the prosecution of a more serious crime, as well as agree to testify in a trial against them.