The 'king of steel' Alonso Ancira is extradited to Mexico

Alonso Ancira arrives at the court in Palma de Mallorca, in May 2019.AFP

Spain has extradited this Wednesday the owner of the Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) steelmaker, Alonso Ancira, to be tried for an alleged corruption plot connected with the

and with the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya.

The Attorney General's Office is investigating four transfers for 3.4 million dollars made between June and November 2012 from Ancira's company to Tochos Holding, a company in an

paradise

where Lozoya received bribes to buy a house in exchange for favors.

Sources close to the process confirmed that the 69-year-old businessman asked a federal judge to take his process at his home because his age and his conditions of hypertension and diabetes make him a vulnerable person to covid-19.

The aircraft of the Attorney General's Office landed with the businessman at 5:30 p.m. (local time) at the Mexico City airport.

After a medical examination, Ancira is expected to be transferred to the North Prison in the capital.

The so-called “king of Mexican steel” was arrested in Palma de Mallorca in May 2019 and in November of last year the Spanish justice confirmed his extradition, considering that the acts pursued by Mexico have not prescribed and are also crimes in Spain.

The judges also ruled out that there is a political persecution against the steelmaker, as his defense has argued from the first moment of his arrest.

The arrival of Ancira in Mexico opens a new chapter in the case that the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador continues against several politicians linked to the top of the Administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.

The Prosecutor's Office and the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Treasury (UIF) follow the trail of corruption left by the bribes paid by Odebrecht in the country and in which the businessman allegedly participated actively together with the now prosecuted Lozoya.

The accusations against the steelmaker point to Pemex's acquisition of the Agro Nitrogenados plant, owned by AHMSA in 2014. The industrial complex had been inactive for more than 14 years and was bought at a premium for $ 275 million when its value had been appraised at 58 million.

The facts that Ancira is now being accused of for this transaction are bribery and money laundering or embezzlement of public resources.

During the morning conference this Wednesday, the Secretary of the Interior, Olga Sánchez Cordero confirmed the return of Ancira to Mexico to face a criminal process.

The official pointed out that those involved in the case must return "what does not correspond to them, what was a matter of corruption, that they face the process and we have the possibility of returning to the treasury and the nation what they were illegally taken and does not correspond to them" .

Through a statement published on the Mexican Stock Exchange, the AHMSA company affirmed that it reiterates its support for Ancira "in the assurance that the controversy that affects it will be resolved shortly."

The still Chairman of the Board of AHMSA and one of the majority partners of the company was a key part of the Mexican steel industry during the last 30 years.

His leadership in the sector was not without controversy in the face of the company's bankruptcy in the 1990s and its decision to go into exile in Israel amid accusations of tax fraud.

Now, "the king of steel" must face one more scandal before the Mexican justice.