translated from Spanish: FGR opens new folder for pemex contract fraud to Odebrecht

The Attorney General’s Office (FGR) initiated a new investigation into the losses to the estuary in addition to the 250 million pesos left by the contracts to repair refineries granted in the past six years to construction company Odebrecht. This is economic damage that has so far not been repaired.
This is the second research folder that the FGR opens for the fraud that represented the irregular granting of these contracts to Odebrecht in the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto. The contracts were awarded under disadvantaged conditions endorsed by both the State’s own company, led at the time by Emilio Lozoya, with the complicity of the Ministry of Finance headed by Luis Videgaray.
The first indegatory began just last February and both have been opened following formal complaints by the Federation’s Higher Audit (ASF). Since 2018, the ill-handling behind these hires had been documented, but no complaints had been filed.

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The purpose of the investigations, according to the federal officials consulted, is to proceed against those who are responsible for the anomalies in the award and execution of the services. These are different processes than those initiated by bribes that Mexican officials received from the construction company.
Animal Político went ahead last February that according to the estimates of the financial audits carried out by the ASF, the alleged break to the era for the awards that Pemex Transformación Industrial gave to the Brazilian construction company and its subsidiaries in Mexico amounts to 1 billion 250 million pesos.

The losses are mainly linked to contract number PXR-OP-SILN-SPR-CPMAC-A-4-14 delivered to construction company Norberto Odebrecht via direct award and whose object was the “Site Conditioning, Land Movement and Platform Formation for the Waste Harvesting Project at the Miguel Hidalgo Refinery, located in Tula Hidalgo.
Following the review of that procedure, the auditors found at least 21 irregularities before, during and after the award, including eight that meant serious economic losses for Pemex and therefore for public coffers.
Although an office was issued to justify the contract being delivered without a public tender, Pemex sought two suppliers including Odebrecht to compete for the best price. However, the procedure was a simulation because on the same day as the proposals the evaluation and opinion that gave the Brazilian company as the winner was ready.
From there the anomalies occurred one after the other. From the cost of materials and services, to the extra payment for various goods and materials that were not stipulated in the contract. All with the complacency or complicity of Petróleos Mexicanos.
One of the assumptions of the audit, which will have to be recorded by the FGR, is that Odebrecht was premeditatedly allowed to acquire materials and supplies under this and other contracts that were not necessary for the works, but which allowed the company to obtain higher profit margins.
In 2018, even during the management of President Peña Nieto, the ASF released the results of the audits carried out to the works on the Tula refinery. From there, there began to be a deadline for the Mexican Petroleum administration or the government to take the necessary actions in order to recover the losses.
However, neither the outgoing nor the current federal administration managed to recover the damage caused. Therefore, the ASF has filed criminal complaints to take action against those involved and to repair, where possible, the losses generated by irregular proceedings.
The Likely Responsible
According to federal authorities, the initial responsibilities for these losses initially lie with Pemex officials directly linked to the procedures for contracting, executing and monitoring works which were identified in technical opinions.
However, they anticipated that the chain of responsibilities could be larger and reach out to senior ex-officials because of the already existing background to this case. Specifically to the allegedly premeditated way in which these contracts were awarded after construction company Odebrecht paid bribes to obtain them.
Pemex’s former director, Emilio Lozoya, who was at the helm of pemex when the contrhe confessed in a complaint filed with the FGR that payments from the Brazilian construction company were accepted on luis Videgaray’s alleged instructions from before Peña’s administration began, and after the government began.
The Brazilian company’s own former directors confessed in statements to authorities in the United States and Brazil that bribed Mexican officials for Pemex’s obtaining contracts.
Because research folders for the break to the steed have only just begun this year, so far there is no one officially charged for it. Lozoya and her mother are criminally prosecuted, but for the bribes they allegedly accepted and washed from the Brazilian construction company, but not for the consequences.
A month ago, former PAN healer Jorge Luis Lavalle was also prosecuted and imprisoned, but he is accused of receiving bribes from Odebrecht to supposedly promote the adoption of structural reforms in the past six years. It’s a different case than contracts.
Read more: We’re not filed with Peña Nieto, we’re not going to go after anyone, says AMLO on Odebrecht case
Almost ready, new case for washing of 3 billion
In a different case but also related to Odebrecht, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) of the Ministry of Finance is about to conclude an investigation that will give rise to a complaint to the FGR for possible money laundering operations that already reach 3.96 million pesos.
This is research that the FIU initiated since last year and has gradually grown in complexity and severity. Initially, almost half a hundred possible facades and companies had been detected, but now more than 150 potential natural and moral persons involved have been raised.
According to federal authorities, this network of ghost companies incorporated in Mexico would have managed to displace at least part of the resources that Odebrecht obtained through contracts for purposes that until now remain under investigation.
Both resource triangulations have been detected between companies, as well as the dispersion of resources through several people who would have withdrawn them in cash in small amounts.
The purpose of the criminal complaint to the FGR will be to try to identify the fate of the money and to prosecute those involved. Researchers presume that resources may have been used not only for their own benefit but for possible illegal campaign financing or vote buying.
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Original source in Spanish

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