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The 'Odebrecht case' hits Anaya and remains pending on Lozoya after a year of accusations

2021-08-24T12:44:46.662Z


The former director of Pemex, a collaborator of the Prosecutor's Office, lengthens the investigation process based on extensions, with the Treasury on his heels


Emilio Lozoya, former director of Pemex.

AP

The departure from Mexico of Ricardo Anaya after being summoned by the Prosecutor's Office for alleged acts of corruption has once again exposed a case, that of Odebrecht, which has barely made progress in Mexico and seems frozen in time. The former presidential candidate has announced that he is leaving the country one year after the complaint by the former director of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya, who accused a dozen politicians, including Anaya, of benefiting from a network of bribes and diversion of funds in the thousands of millions of pesos. Extradited from Spain in July 2020, Lozoya became a collaborator of the Attorney General's Office (FGR). The former official, responsible for the parastatal for much of the government of Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), then accused a group of politicians, including Peña Nieto himself, his predecessor,Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) and former President Carlos Salinas (1988-1994). The consequences of such accusations, so far, have been slim.

One year after his complaint, the former official's statements have barely generated legal action.

The FGR has only proceeded against one of the alleged implicated in the corruption network, the former senator of the conservative National Action party Jorge Lavalle, currently in prison.

Cornerstone of the FGR case, Lozoya and its alleged battery of evidence against legislators and senior officials has not yielded more results, at least for now.

The former official has asked the judge for another investigation extension to accumulate more evidence, a period that would end in October.

More information

  • Odebrecht's fight against corruption crashes in Mexico under the shadow of impunity

  • Former Pemex director accuses three former Mexican presidents of receiving bribes from Odebrecht

In his accusation, the former official also pointed to a fifteen politicians of receiving money, among them the aforementioned former presidents or legislators such as Ricardo Anaya, a former presidential candidate for the conservative National Action party. Required by justice, Anaya has recently denounced political persecution by the current government, headed by Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Lozoya accused Anaya of receiving six million pesos in exchange for supporting the energy reform.

The accusation came officially by the former member of the defunct Presidential General Staff and in charge of Lozoya's security, Norberto Gallardo Vargas. In his ministerial statement, he assured that in August 2014 he gave in a "sports bag" 6.8 million pesos to Anaya and her "link" Osiris Hernández in the parking lot of the Chamber of Deputies, according to part of the folder he had

Millennium

access

in July. Anaya assured this weekend, in a video prior to the announcement of his departure from the country, that the file is "made with the legs", because, in his testimony, Lozoya had declared that they had given him money in exchange for his vote when he was a deputy on August 8, 2014. "But they realized that on that date I was not a deputy and that on that date I was not even in Mexico City," he remarked. “So, in order not to make a fool of themselves, they made a mess: they changed Lozoya's statement, that is, they altered the file. In what they modified, now the supposed delivery of money no longer has anything to do with my vote and the date is no longer August 8, "he added.

The Ministry of Finance is hot on Lozoya's heels. Between July and August, the Financial Intelligence Unit of the agency, UIF, has filed two complaints against the former official, the Odebrecht group and a network of dozens of people and companies that have been implicated in the diversion of billions of pesos to allegedly financing electoral campaigns, one of the legs of the alleged corrupt plot.

According to Lozoya's complaint, the Peña Nieto government would have used the Odebrecht money to finance PRI electoral campaigns and also to ensure the approval of the energy reform, which opened the sector to private initiative after years of restrictions. In command of the distribution of money, the former director of Pemex pointed to one of the closest people to Peña Nieto, former Secretary of the Treasury Luis Videgaray. "Between Peña Nieto and Videgaray there was an agreement to implement an organized apparatus of power that implemented what was necessary to obtain benefits that affect the sovereignty of Mexico," said Lozoya.

The role of the former director of Pemex in the investigations is nuclear, but also enigmatic.

In addition to the

Odebrecht case

, justice implicates Lozoya in the purchase by Pemex of an industrial complex with a surcharge of more than 200 million dollars.

In 2014, the state-owned company acquired a plant to make fertilizers from the industrial Altos Hornos de México, for $ 275 million.

According to the FGR, the high price had a reason: the bribe that Altos Hornos would have paid Lozoya, some 3.5 million dollars.

Despite the seriousness of the accusations in the

Odebrecht

and Altos Hornos cases, the former official has managed to stay out of prison, always with the idea that he provide evidence to support his complaint, which he has not done so far.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2021-08-24

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