During the government of the Morenoite Layda Sansores, the mayor Álvaro Obregón directly awarded three contracts for almost 1 million pesos to Unfigrad S.A. de C.V., a ghost company that is investigated by the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) as part of the network of diversion of resources and money laundering allegedly built by Isaac Gamboa Lozano, former official of the Ministry of Finance murdered in May 2020.
Through requests for information, Political Animal obtained three contracts awarded in 2019 by the General Directorate of Administration of Álvaro Obregón for the teaching of courses to the administrative staff of the mayor’s office.
The alleged trainings for bureaucrats were on topics so dissimilar that they ranged from how to give “attention to vulnerable groups”, “teamwork” and “management of work stress” to “electrical installations”, “carpentry in general” and “electrofusion in polyethylene pipes”.
The contracts were signed by the general director of Administration of the mayor’s office, Alberto Esteva Salinas, and the director of Material Resources, Juan Abad de Jesús, but they lack the signature of the legal representative of Unfigrad, Walter Ortuño Santana, which constitutes an irregularity.
The first contract and an amending agreement were signed in September and October 2019 for an amount of 443,160 pesos. In October, a second contract was awarded for 539,824 pesos.
This media wrote directly to Sansores, today governor of Campeche (she requested a license to the position of mayor in 2021 and contended in the state election of that year), to request a position regarding the hiring of Unfigrad, but the president did not respond to the request.
In the contracts with Álvaro Obregón, Unfigrad – established in 2016 – recorded its fiscal domicile at Avenida Patriotismo 767, in the Benito Juárez mayor’s office, an office building that is actually a “nest” of several front companies of the network that Isaac Gamboa constituted while he was working as a penyista official and that allegedly laundered money on an international scale for an amount of 5,800 million pesos, according to investigations by the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) and the FGR.
According to the investigation, which was baptized by the authorities “Black Widow Case” and whose details were revealed by Political Animal, Unfigrad made deposits of 7.6 million pesos directly to the accounts of Bethzabee Brito Álvarez, wife – now a widow – of Gamboa.
On May 21, it was 2 years since the murder of the head of the Budget Policy and Control Unit of the SHCP under the orders of Luis Videgaray.
Unfigrad’s alleged legal representative, Walter Ortuño Santana, along with his wife, Irene Nemesia Arriaga, are linked, in total, to 15 companies in the network. The Ministry of Finance considered these prestanombres as victims of identity theft or extortion, so it did not take legal action against them.
However, against Unfigrad, the company contracted by the government of Sansores in Álvaro Obregón, there are serious accusations of operations with resources of illicit origin. This company entered into legal dispute after the murder of Gamboa, as his in-laws fought for control of the millionaire patrimony in their accounts, according to this media.
Institutions transfer payments to more companies in the network
Two other companies in Isaac Gamboa’s network, Sinaprit Servicios S.A. de C.V. and Bunker Techno S.A. de C.V. – which have already been classified by the SAT as definitive shell companies – received transfers from various municipal, state and federal public institutions between 2017 and 2019, according to electronic invoices (CFDI) obtained by Political Animal through transparency requests.
The deposits total 1.2 million pesos and were made by state authorities in San Luis Potosí, Veracruz, Estado de México and Querétaro, as well as by the Mexican municipality of Tultitlán and the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán.
Transfers were also made – albeit of small amounts – from the Ministry of the Interior and the Presidency of the Republic in the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto.
The Sat Transparency Committee reserved practically all the invoices, but left in sight data that allows to recognize the recipient of the CFDI, the date of issuance of the invoice and the amount paid.
The largest payment, of 522,000 pesos, came from the Government of the State of San Luis Potosí in October 2017, under the management of PRI member Juan Manuel Carreras.
The Legislative Power of the State of Querétaro carried out ifTransfers between October 2017 and May 2018 for 385,779 pesos, while the Ministry of Health of Veracruz made three deposits for 111,116 pesos between November 2017 and October 2018.
The Integrated Educational Services of the State of Mexico (SEIEM) paid 49 thousand pesos in four deposits between February and April 2019.
The municipality of Tultitlán, Edomex, made two payments for 134,400 pesos on February 14 and 15, 2019, and the municipality of Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, transferred 9,280 pesos in June 2018.
The shell companies issued two invoices to two federal institutions of the federal executive of Peña Nieto, Segob and the Presidency of the Republic, for an amount of 169 pesos in December 2019.
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