The former officials of Peña Nieto denounced for corruption in the US signed contracts that "substantially harmed the CFE"

Guillermo Turrent, former director of Modernization of the Federal Electricity Commission and general director of CFE International in 2017. Tercero Díaz (Tercero Díaz)

Guillermo Turrent and Javier Gutiérrez, former officials of the Mexican state electricity company, Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE), are preparing for legal battles in Mexico and the United States.

As EL PAÍS reported last month, the CFE went to a federal court in the United States to obtain more information about the relationship between Turrent, Gutiérrez and Matthew Calhoun, founder of Whitewater Midstream, a company that became the main supplier of imported natural gas. to Mexico during the Administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto.

The US case, separate from another process taking place in Mexico, produced a nearly 1,100-page document that describes in detail the former officials' efforts to award multiple contracts to the company, founded by their friend,

who had no experience in the sector.

One of the contracts under discussion, for example, was awarded to a subsidiary created just three days earlier.

Turrent and Gutiérrez are also scheduled to appear this month before the Attorney General's Office (FGR), where a judge will decide whether they should face a criminal trial in cases of possible corruption for the signing of natural gas contracts — among them those of the American company Whitewater Midstream.

For their legal defense, Turrent and Gutiérrez hired criminal lawyer José Luis Nassar.

The lawyer is a renowned criminal lawyer in the country and has among his list of clients Raúl Salinas de Gortari, brother of former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who was accused of murder in 1995. He has also represented soccer player Rafael Márquez, accused in the US alleged links to organized crime, and the former governor of Nayarit Roberto Sandoval,

who was arrested last year for the crime of "operations with resources of illicit origin."

Nassar's office also represents Luis Cárdenas Palomino, former commander of the Federal Police, arrested for probable responsibility in the crime of torture.

This month hearings are being held before the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (part of the FGR) to determine if Turrent and Gutiérrez are linked to the process, that is, if they should face a criminal trial for their role in the award of several natural gas contracts, granted by CFE when they were officials.

Turrent was CEO of CFE's private arm in the US, CFE International;

Gutierrez was director of operations.

The contracts were signed from the energy reform that opened the electricity market during the previous Administration.

CFE alleges that officials violated the Constitution, as well as criminal and procurement laws, by awarding contracts to Whitewater Midstream, its subsidiaries and affiliates, for hundreds of millions of dollars, without a due bidding process and with conflicts of interest.

The case presented to a federal court in Texas includes the testimony of attorney Fernando Aponte, current Director of Compliance and Responsibilities of CFE International, as well as a private investigator in that country, representing CFE International.

Gutiérrez signed contracts “through the use of the wrong power of attorney and without proper public notarization, which constitute significant legal deficiencies under Mexican law,” Aponte testified before the US court. “I further discovered that, in connection with the acquisition of Waha Connector contracts, there was no evidence that any procurement process had taken place that would have guaranteed the best terms for the Mexican State,” Aponte added, according to the document.

Waha Connector is the name of the pipeline operated by Whitewater Midstream (WWM).

“Further review of the communications and contract history revealed that WWM, the company to which the Waha Connector contracts were awarded, lacked the necessary experience and credit history to be properly awarded such contracts, and that the provisions of the contracts were not competitive and substantially harmed the CFE,” says Aponte's testimony.

“At the time these contracts were awarded, WWM had been in operation for only a few months, and the WWM subsidiaries, which were also awarded the contracts, had been in operation for three days,” the lawyer noted.

“Furthermore, Gutiérrez and Turrent agreed to award WWM these contracts before soliciting or receiving offers from other entities.

As such, the Waha Connector contracts were awarded to WWM in the absence of the analysis required by law to ensure that the State receives the best available market conditions,” added Aponte.

The document also mentions former CFE executive Emilio Cosio, who, according to CFE's testimony and findings, was involved in negotiations between the parastatal and Whitewater.

Cosio, Turrent and Gutiérrez appear as managing members of a company in Austin, Texas called 3V Energy and founded in November 2019, according to the business information portal OpenCorporates.com.

The company, according to a knowledgeable source, sought to sign contracts with CFE before closing in August last year.

Whitewater is also based in Austin.

CFE launched an investigation in the US into Whitewater after EL PAÍS revealed, in July 2021, that Turrent, Calhoun and a third Whitewater executive have known each other for more than 20 years, since they worked together at Royal Dutch Shell.

All three appear in documents that are part of a case of possible manipulation of electric power prices in California, which remains open.

EL PAÍS also revealed that Whitewater employees worked inside the CFE offices in Mexico as “consultants”, according to three internal sources of the state-owned company, at the time that the state-owned company was preparing the tender for a massive contract that Whitewater finished. winning.

CFE and Whitewater are currently in an international arbitration process, after the parastatal refused to pay for the gas it bought from Whitewater during February 2021, when temperatures in the southern US dropped to record highs.

This froze natural gas production and distribution facilities and sent fuel prices skyrocketing.

two-sided relationship

In July of last year, the Mexican government said that authorities in the US are also investigating Whitewater for "delivery of contracts on suspicion of corruption, breach of trust and influence peddling."

The case opened in Texas puts pressure on the authorities in that country to investigate a case of possible corruption that took place on both sides of the border.

In response to a request for information from EL PAÍS, the US embassy in Mexico said that the US government does not comment on open cases.

The relationship with the US is the most important for Mexico, and it is currently going through turbulence mainly caused by the position of the Government of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador in terms of energy policy and in the diplomatic arena, says Adrián Duhalt, a non-resident researcher of the Center for the United States and Mexico of the Baker Institute of Rice University.

López Obrador has reversed the permits and rules of the energy reform of his predecessor, generating uncertainty for millions in investment from North American companies.

"Mexico, despite the rhetoric around energy self-sufficiency, will continue to rely on natural gas imports from the United States to an even greater degree as we approach the end of López Obrador's six-year term," says Duhalt.

“A card that President López Obrador can play is that of corruption.

If WhiteWater Midstream and/or former CFE officials are found to have engaged in influence peddling and acts of corruption, they will not hesitate to use this case to fuel their narrative against previous governments and the 2013 energy reform. With state elections in 2022 and 2023 and presidential in 2024, the WhiteWater Midstream affair and the behavior of former CFE officials are ammunition for the ruling coalition's narrative," added the specialist.

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