After five years of investigations, the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) concluded that the bribes for just over ten million dollars that the construction company Odebrecht paid in Mexico, were transferred exclusively to the former director of Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), Emilio Lozoya Austin, through companies linked to his family. With that money, among other things, he bought a house in Ixtapa Zihuatanejo.
The complete document of the final accusation of the FGR presented before a judge against Lozoya, and of which Political Animal has a copy, warns that thanks to these bribes Odebrecht was favored with the award of the contract for the realization of works in the Tula refinery.
Although Lozoya has denounced that he was used by former President Peña Nieto and former Finance Secretary Luis Videgaray, and that the money was used to bribe legislators and expedite the energy reform, in its indictment the FGR does not present or validate any of these hypotheses. The 59 pieces of evidence he presents are focused on confirming that Lozoya and his relatives were the real beneficiaries of the bribes.
In fact, considering that Lozoya was the final beneficiary of these events, the FGR requests against him a sentence that exceeds 46 years in prison for the crimes of money laundering, criminal association and bribery. In addition, it considers that it must pay a fine of 87 million pesos, an amount for reparation of damage of six million dollars, and lose any rights over the apartment in Ixtapa.
Prosecutors also believe that Lozoya’s mother, Gilda Susana Austin, should be sentenced to spend 23 years in prison and pay a fine of 262,000 pesos.
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In the indictment, the FGR proposes to the judge the presentation of 19 witnesses for the trial, including those of six former executives of the construction company Odebrecht, who will confirm that it was the former director of Pemex who requested and received the money from the construction company in multiple payments made between 2012 and 2014.
The theory of the case presented to the judge by the prosecutor Kristian Jiménez Hernández, responsible for the investigation folder FED/SEIDF/CGI-CDMX/0000117/2017, indicates that the Brazilian construction company, through its bribery arm known as “Structured Operations Division”, provided Lozoya with millionaire resources in exchange for gaining influence over him and that he, in turn, it will operate to benefit them with contracts.
The first part of the payments were in the amount of four million dollars, and began to be transferred between April and June 2012, when Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign was still underway. Although Lozoya maintained that the money would be to support the campaign, he asked that deposits be made to companies linked to it.
After giving the green light to the exit of the money, Odebrecht began the dispersion of the resource through one of its front companies called Innovation Research Engineering which, in turn, sent it to a company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands called Latin American Asia Capital Holding. The beneficiaries of this company’s accounts, opened in a Swiss bank, were Lozoya himself and his sister Gilda Susana.
In November, when one million 516 thousand dollars of the four agreed were still to be transferred, an anti-money laundering alert was generated that blocked the account of the Latin American company. Lozoya then gave the instruction for the transfers to be made to another company incorporated in the same tax haven, but called Tochos Holding, where his sister was also the beneficiary.
According to the FGR, the fact that the payments continued to be made even when the presidential election was already over, proves that the money was for Lozoya. However, the former Odebrecht officials acknowledge that they continued to send the money because they knew, according to Lozoya himself, that he would occupy “a high position in the government.”
The other six million and the house
Prosecutor Jimenez Hernandez’s indictment says that after being named Pemex CEO, Lozoya met again with Odebrecht officials. This already in 2013. In the talk, the Brazilians confirmed that they had an alliance with a hidalgo company called Construcciones Tapia (recommended by Lozoya himself), in order to obtain contracts related to the Tula refinery.
Lozoya proposed that the construction company influence Pemex’s Board of Directors to try to award them the contract. In return, a bribe of six million dollars was agreed, of which two million would be delivered regardless of whether or not the contra was consummated.tación, and the remaining four only if the award was closed.
The payments were made following the same mechanism of front companies in tax havens and, at the request of the former director of Pemex himself, the final destination of the money was the company Zecapan S.A., another company related to Emilio Lozoya. The payments were deposited in the company’s account opened at neue Bank located in the Principality of Liechtenstein.
The bribe paid off for Odebrecht because, in February 2014, it was awarded the public works contract PXR-OP-SILN-SPR-CPMAC-A-4-14 known as Tula I. A contract that, in the end, the Superior Audit of the Federation would confirm that it had surcharges of more than 300 percent and left losses of 950 million pesos, at least.
Prosecutors add that with the alleged irregular payments Lozoya received from Odebrecht, he acquired a property located in the Quinta Mar condominium, in the Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo Tourist Development in Guerrero. The department had a value of one million 900 thousand dollars, of which one million 200 thousand dollars were paid through a transfer from the aforementioned company Tochos Holding.
The purchase was made through a warehouse sent first in Montreal, Canada, and the final operation was executed by Marielle Hlene Eckes, wife of Emilio Lozoya. It was a frank money laundering and criminal association operation, according to prosecutors.
The indictment also identifies a transfer of $185,000 from the aforementioned company Tochos Holding to a BBVA Bancomer account in the name of Gilda Margarita Austin, Lozoya mother. “All this in order to hide the origin of such resources, omitting the corresponding tax returns before the Tax Administration Service,” the indictment states.
The 59 pieces of evidence from the Prosecution
To prove the charges against Lozoya and his mother at trial, prosecutors offered 59 documentary, expert and testimonial evidence.
Of the witnesses that the Prosecutor’s Office proposed to the judge, seven former officials of the Norberto Odebrecht company stand out, including Marcelo Bahía Odebrecht, former president of the company, and Luis Alberto de Meneses Weyll, former head of the Mexico Division of the Brazilian construction company. All of them will confirm, according to the FGR, the way in which the money was delivered to Lozoya.
Given that these are Brazilian citizens and that there is a commitment not to proceed against them, the prosecutors propose to the judge that their appearance in the oral trial be carried out through the videoconference system, with the support of translation experts.
The rest of the witnesses that FGR proposes are officials from the Financial Intelligence Unit, Pemex, the Secretariat of the Public Function and the prosecutor’s office itself, who participated in both the complaint and the investigations. The lawyer of the BBVA Bancomer bank has also been summoned as a witness to corroborate the deposits received to accounts linked to Lozoya’s family.
On the other hand, the prosecutor proposed a list of 21 expert reports, of which 14 are in the field of translation mainly from English and Portuguese into Spanish. This involves the translation of documents containing, above all, the confessions of former Odebrecht officials to authorities in those countries, as well as the translation of bank statements. It is also proposed as evidence three expert reports in accounting, two in computer science, one in criminalistics, and one more in photography.
And among the 19 documentary evidence offered are the bank records with the transfers of Odebrecht’s front companies to the companies linked to Lozoya and his family. Also presented are the documents that prove the acquisition of the property in Ixtapa, the contract granted to Odebrecht for the works at the Tula refinery, the complaints for money laundering operations, and the networks of links presented by the UIF and Pemex.
It should be noted that this evidence will be confronted with the 37 pieces of evidence that Emilio Lozoya’s lawyers have offered to defend his innocence. The debate on the evidence that will be maintained and those that will be discarded will take place in an intermediate hearing, prior to the trial, to be held in the coming weeks.
Read more: FGR begins declassification of the Odebrecht case; publishes names of interrogated officials and statements
Decades in jail and millionaire fine
Because he is the main beneficiary of Odebrecht’s bribes, the FGR asked the judge that Emilio Lozoya be sentenced with the highest penalties that the law contemplates for the three crimes that are imputed to him, and that in total accumulate 46 years and six months in prison without the right to any benefit.
For the specific crime of criminal association, sotenders for ten years’ imprisonment; for operations with resources of illicit origin 22 years and six months in prison; and for bribery a sentence of 14 years in prison.
In addition, prosecutors believe that Lozoya should be credited with a fine according to the perceptions he received as CEO of Pemex. As it is estimated that his daily income was 10 thousand 975 pesos, and that the crimes that are imputed to him carry 7 thousand 950 days of fine, the economic sanction reaches 87 million 252 thousand 442 pesos. This added to another payment in the amount of 6.3 million dollars that must be carried out for repair of the damage.
The Prosecutor’s Office also requests that, as part of the sentence, Lozoya be definitively confiscated the condominium in Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo that was acquired with resources from the companies involved in the bribery network. The property has already been provisionally insured by the authorities since 2019.
In the case of Mrs. Gilda Margarita, Lozoya’s mother, prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 10 years in prison for the crime of criminal association, and 11 years and 3 months for money laundering. They also ask to be fined with the payment of 262 thousand 748 pesos. In her case and if convicted, the lady could obtain some benefit such as house arrest due to her advanced age.
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