The administration of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, through the National Institute of Migration (INM), awarded a million-dollar contract by direct award to a company that the same federal government accused of belonging to the network of shell companies that allegedly collaborated with the spyware provider Pegasus.
In December 2019, the INM awarded a contract for 112.9 million pesos to the company name Comercializadora Antsua S.A. de C.V. for the lease and technical support of computer equipment. In addition, this contract was reserved for 5 years so that its contents are not disclosed to the public for alleged reasons of national security.
Read more | Videgaray, Cienfuegos, Duarte: the names behind the payments to the espionage network with Pegasus
Political Animal he confirmed that, through its legal representative, Comercializadora Antsua is linked to the group of 12 front companies that both the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection (SSPC) accused of collaborating in money laundering operations with Grupo Tech Bull S.A. de C.V., which sold pegasus spyware to the governments of Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto.
Santiago Nieto, head of the UIF, and Rosa Icela Rodríguez, of the SSPC, publicly denounced the “Pegasus network” at the morning conferences on July 21 and 28. There, the officials aired that this group of social reasons simulated million-dollar contracts with public institutions in past six years. Information on the front companies and the alleged fraudulent contracts was handed over to the FGR.
#Pegasus | The secretary @rosaicela_ points out that during the governments of Felipe Calderon and Enrique Peña Nieto various agencies awarded 31 contracts for one thousand 970 million pesos for the purchase of espionage systems. pic.twitter.com/LIy2F8PQ6V
— Political Animal (@Pajaropolitico) July 28, 2021
Both the UIF and the SSPC emphasized that the “Pegasus network” benefited from public contracts exclusively in the Calderón and Peña Nieto governments, and assured that no institution of the current administration is related to the social reasons denounced.
Nevertheless Political Animal established that the INM awarded a contract to Comercializadora Antsua, a company belonging to the group denounced by the federal government itself. The Oaxaca government, headed by PRI member Alejandro Murat, also allocated a contract of 17.7 million pesos to the same company.
INM reserves 5-year contract
On December 13, 2019, the National Migration Institute awarded contract CS/INM/136/2019 to Comercializadora Antsua S.A. de C.V. for 112 million 999 thousand 999 pesos for the lease and support of computer equipment.
At the morning conference on July 28, the SSPC denounced that the same corporate name had simulated a million-dollar contract for the sale of medicines to the Deconcentrated Administrative Body for Prevention and Social Rehabilitation (OADPRS) — which administers federal prisons — in 2018, even during the Peñista six-year term.
The INM not only awarded this contract to the company of the “Pegasus network”, but also reserved it for 5 years so that its contents would not be known.
In a session on May 7, 2020, the INM Transparency Committee noted that releasing the name and signature of the supplier’s legal representative represented a national security risk, as this would make it identifiable, and therefore it could attempt to obtain sensitive information contained in the institution’s computers.
Although the Transparency Committee only endorsed censoring the data of the legal representative of Comercializadora Antsua, the entire contract was deleted from the network and is not located in Compranet or the National Transparency Platform, according to this media.
Through its social communication directorate, the INM was asked about the hiring of a supplier identified by the federal government itself as a possible shell company and that is allegedly involved in money laundering activities, but, after several days of waiting, the institution declined to respond to the query.
Millionaire company in popular colony
Although it reports having offices in Polanco, Comercializadora Antsua S.A. de C.V. was incorporated in February 2017 with address at Mayas Street number 28, in the popular Colonia Aqueducto Tenayuca, Tlalnepantla, State of Mexico. There is located a modest two-story house that, in turn, is the address of one of the shareholders of the company, Omar Guadalupe Ramírez Carrillo.
In June 2018, just over a year later of its creation, and without having previous experience in the field, the company received, by direct award, a contract of 145.1 million pesos from the OADPRS to sell drugs for federal prisons, even though providing such goods was not foreseen among the objectives of the mercantile company. The head of the SSPC, Rosa Icela Rodriguez, said that the contract was a simulation.
According to documentation from the Public Registry and directories of government suppliers consulted by this means, comercializadora Antsua’s representative is Marco Antonio Suárez Cedillo, who, at the same time, is the legal representative of Artículos Textiles, Equipos y Accesorios MV S.A. de C.V., a company that the UIF identified as the façade of Grupo Tech Bull.
On July 21, the UIF reported that the latter company received 1,265 million pesos in contracts with various agencies during the peñismo, including the SSPC, and that between 2016 and 2019 it sent 2.7 million dollars to accounts in the United States and China.
This media sent messages to the emails of Comercializadora Antsua registered in the directories of government suppliers to ask the representatives of the company for a clarifying position, but no response was received.
Murat’s government also gives him a contract
The Government of Oaxaca, headed by PRI member Alejandro Murat, hired Comercializadora Antsua S.A. de C.V. in September 2019 to purchase uniforms for state security institutions and municipalities.
This company is the same one that, in 2018, hired the OADPRS for the purchase of medicines and, then, already in this administration, the INM to lease computer equipment.
As part of the public tender LPN-SA-SE-0025-08/2019, in which six suppliers participated, the Executive Secretariat of the State System of Public Security of Oaxaca selected Comercializadora Antsua, which was paid 17.7 million pesos.
The directorate of social communication of the government of Oaxaca and the State Comptroller’s Office pointed to Political Animal that Comercializadora Antsua met the contracting requirements and offered the best conditions, and they stressed that the procedure was carried out through a public tender. In turn, the Comptroller’s Office assured that the supplier complied with the contracted services –although it did not offer evidence of this–, so it ruled out the initiation of any investigation of administrative responsibilities.
The contract was paid for with federal resources from the Public Safety Contribution Fund (FASP), which is distributed to the states year after year.
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