Emilio Lozoya Austin’s complaint on Wednesday not only tells how, according to the former functioner, bribes were handed out for The campaign of Enrique Peña Nieto and for the approval of its energy reform.
Lozoya’s account also chronicles rivalries and alliances, alleged extortion and the luxuries of members of a part of the Mexican political class.
Here are some fragments of the leaked report.
Odebrecht’s money in the 2012 campaign
At an event during the campaign (2012 election), Luis Weyll, director of Odebrecht in Mexico, and Roberto Bishop, CEO of Braskem Mexico, told Peña Nieto “we are with you and count on us.” To which Peña Nieto replied “thank you very much for the support you have given us”. This dialogue was more than enough to understand that Enrique Peña Nieto was perfectly aware of the contributions they would give.
Media money
I asked Luis Videgaray Caso how he did to maintain a favorable press, he said, “You don’t know how to use power. I have a list of journalists, like Lourdes Mendoza, whom I keep happy with cannons of 50 thousand to 100 thousand pesos per month. It’s the only way I can beat Osorio Chong, who wants to displace me.”
He gave me as an example the case of the media group El Financiero. The group went to Luis Videgaray Caso to get a credit with NAFIN of $100 million, as it was about to go bankrupting. Because NAFIN denied the credit, he “warmed up,” he told me, and came close to removing Jacques Rogozinski. However, he did get Bancomext to make the loan.
Find out: Videgaray replies: It’s political revenge, Lozoya and I had a bad relationship
‘Tying reform’
By phone call I informed him that the process of delivering the additional bribes was about to end in order to “tie the reform”, to which he replied “very well champion, let’s go with everything”.
Within the framework of this environment of abuse of power and corruption – as if it were organized crime – Enrique Peña Nieto and Luis Videgaray Caso implemented various methods to obtain resources.
Pann ‘extortion’
The actions provided by Odebrecht served to cover part of the form of order sought by the NAP parliamentary group. However, extortion was constant: they called for an appointment, showed up in my office and demanded more money and extorted on the grounds that they would ‘take down energy reform’. I remember specifically the cases of Francisco Cabeza de Vaca, Ricardo Anaya and Francisco Dominguez, whose attitude was exaggerated.
***
In the specific case of Francisco Dominguez Servin the demands for money reached the level that, meeting us at an event in the United States and finding that legislator in a drunken state, took the flag of Mexico and threw it, shouting that “this was a betrayal because they did not meet the delivery of the agreed amount”. This happened at an event called CERAWEEK in Houston in March 2014.
***
The attitude of the panistas in obtaining resources was brutal. For example, in addition to extorting me, they pressured and extorted the petrol groups and various Pemex contractors (…) I did not give credence to the fact that, when the Odebrecht scandal came out to the media and was said to have given me money, all the panistas, including Ricardo Anaya called for punishment…
***
The demands of the NAP Parliamentary Group had originally been up to US$50 million to grant its vote in favour of energy reform. The instructions I received from Luis Videgaray consisted of delivering (…) the funds granted by Odebrecht gradually and as the projects and opinions progressed.
Portfolios
On September 15, 2014, resources totalled 8,390,000.00 million pesos were given to the following officials: José Antongio González Anaya 4 million 390 thousand pesos, and José Antonio Meade Kuribeña 4 million pesos. Between 17 and 20 September 2014, 4 million pesos were handed over to Carlos Treviño Medina. In these three cases, the precise instruction of Luis Videgaray was that those amounts referred to above were to be delivered in a portfolio of work and that they had to be told, by Norberto Gallardo expressly, that those deliveries of money were by Luis Videgaray.
Read: Everyone disentanks: that’s how politicians identified in Lozoya’s denunciation reacted
I hate the panist opponent
Separately, Luis Videgaray Caso instructed me to receive Ricardo Anaya Cortés andn the offices of Pemex and Ernesto Cordero Arroyo, with whom I had breakfast at the Four Seasons Hotel. Specifically, Luis Videgaray Caso instructed me to give 6 million 800 thousand pesos to Ricardo Anaya Cortés, who had been insisting on meeting me.
At that meeting he told me that he was aspirations to be governor of Querétaro and that he hated his opponent, Senator Francisco Dominguez as corrupt, but that he had negotiated with Luis Videgaray Caso that he be supported to reach such a governorship.
Family favors
Luis Videgaray instructed me to receive Senator Miguel Angel Barbosa Huerta and he would like to take his brother, Pemex worker, from a storage terminal in Guerrero to the headquarters of Mexico City. This request had already been advanced to me by Luis Videgaray and his vision was that, in return, Senator Barbosa would not mount a revolt on the part of the PRD for the approval of energy reform.
Getting resources
In September 2013 I met again with Luis Videgaray in the same offices. I informed him that he had not made progress in obtaining illegal resources, claiming that we were cutting costs across all hiring lines (…). He, annoyed, said he would get up to $10 million extra – taking them, he said, from federal and/or business items – and send them to the office in Montes Urales, where the delivery of bribes to lawmakers was organized.
In total, an additional $10 million in bribes was awarded. In order not to leave so much money in the offices, deliveries were made available to the PAN group the same day or a couple of days later.
Grupo Higa, Peña’s favorite
In the construction sector they promoted Grupo Higa in the award of engineering and construction projects. This worked until the White House scandal broke out.
After the White House, Juan Armando Hinojosa brokered between construction companies, SCT and Pemex. It is my knowledge – by the very voice of Juan Armando Hinojosa – that I received these types of commissions that normally ranged from 2 to 5% of the total final cost of the works. These amounts were delivered in cash to Juan Armando Hinojosa and he, in turn, shared them – also in cash – with Enrique Peña Nieto.
The pressure exerted by Juan Armando Hinojosa was indecent, always stating that it was an agreement with his partner, President Peña Nieto.
***
Hinojosa referred to in the meetings that he had saved the skin of Luis Videgaray, since to pay for the acquisition of the house of Malinalco, the works of art that Videgaray had given in payment had also been provided by Him. This mentioned him to exert pressure on me, showing his power, due to the closeness with Enrique Peña Nieto.
***
(…) Astonishingly, the president decided to cancel the Mexico-Querétaro train project. Before that announcement, the president called me into his room to inform me of the imminent announcement. I told him that meant destroying relations between the two countries, because of the project’s flagship for the Chinese government. Asked the reason for the cancellation, he said, “It’s that we have a Videgaray problem and I because Higa facilitated The House of Malinalco to Luis and I’m supporting myself with another house.”
Faced with this, I suggested simply excluding Higa group from the project, but he preferred to sacrifice the project and the relationship with China, to try to hide the theme of houses.
The gift of the ‘gober’
As part of the Navy Day celebrations in Veracruz, then-governor Javier Duarte approached him on the steps of the presidential plane and handed a folder to the president. I knew of the close relationship between the two, as Videgaray had long instructed me to ‘facilitate’ various types of fuel to the Duarte government.
(…). As we boarded the presidential plane, Enrique Peña Nieto told us, ‘Look what the gober gave me,’ showing us the bottom of the folder at that moment. There were the photos of a Ferrari with the text: ‘This Ferrari belonged to President López Mateos’ and on one side were the car keys.
Enrique Peña Nieto asked the waiter on board to open a couple of bottles of Vega Sicilia “to celebrate this successful tour”.
The president’s photographer
At the beginning of Peña Nieto’s management as President of the Republic, he instructed me to coordinate with the technical secretary of the cabinet, named Roberto Pradilla Domínguez, in order for Pemex to hire the services of a photographer. During the meeting with Pradilla, he told me that the construction of ahome, located in the State of Mexico, by the time the president concluded his term, and that the president would have a ‘President’s Museum’, so that the photographer would take the photographs of the relevant events.
(…) The photographer’s contract would be in the amount of between two and three million pesos per month. (…) Pemex continued to pay the photographer’s fees, until we were observed for comptrollership and was no longer sustainable.
(…) In the context of a dinner in Los Pinos, and antero Rodarte was in a drunken state, he told me that ‘he was up to the mother of how little he was paid, compared to the suitcases full of wads of bills that he had to shelter in the cellar of the ‘Museo de Peña’.
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