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Yesterday, Former Pemex chief Emilio Lozoya Austin filed a lawsuit against ex-president Enrique Peña Nieto and former Foreign Affairs Minister Luis Videgaray Caso. Lozoya argues Peña Nieto and Videgaray instructed him to distribute MXN 500 million in Odebrecht bribes to pay foreign advisers during the 2012 presidential campaign, lawmakers, and a political party.
In 2012, supporters of current President Andrés Manuel López Obrador accused Peña Nieto’s campaign of employing about 20 foreign advisers, including some from South America, Spain, and the United States. At the time, Peña Nieto’s Institutional Revolutionary Party denied those people worked for his campaign.
When Peña Nieto’s ads started appearing on television in 2012, the production values and locations were far beyond the reach of López Obrador, who could barely afford microphones for the small rallies he held in town squares. Peña Nieto appeared in a series of slick 30-second ads filmed in each of Mexico’s 31 states, where the telegenic, neatly groomed candidate was shown hugging and shaking hands with people of each state.
Peña Nieto’s campaign was so carefully managed that the former soap opera star he married just before the campaign, and from whom he split just two months after leaving office, appeared to be part of the election plan.
Recommended: Emilio Lozoya's lawyer officially asks Peña Nieto and Luis Videgaray to testify
After winning, Peña Nieto introduced a series of historical reforms favoring the private sector, including an energy reform that opened the oil sector to foreign companies.
Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said Lozoya presented evidence such as invoices and a recording, and four witnesses.
In total, Lozoya Austin argues he paid MXN 404 million in bribes to lawmakers and a political party to approve a series of structural reforms proposed by Enrique Peña Nieto.
Peña Nieto proposed reforms regarding labor, economic competitiveness, telecommunications, finance, elections, education, social security, energy, transparency, and justice between 2012 and 2014.
The reforms were the basis of the so-called Pact for Mexico, a political-legislative agreement supported by the PRI, PAN, and PRD.
Recommended: Emilio Lozoya says Odebrecht bribes were used to fund Enrique Peña Nieto's presidential campaign in 2012
They later told him to give lawmakers another MXN 84 million. Lozoya argues he gave a party leader over MXN 200 million.
The former Pemex chief said Felipe Calderón Hinojosa granted Odebrecht a government contract to build a petrochemical plant, Etileno XXI , in Veracruz.
Before judges bound Emilio Lozoya over for trial in connection with the Odebrecht and Agronitrogenados cases, it was rumored that the lawmakers involved in the bribery scheme were Ernesto Cordero, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, José Luis Lavalle Maury, and Salvador Vega Casillas.
Hours later, Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero said the bribes allegedly ordered by Enrique Peña Nieto and Luis Videgaray caused economic damages worth MXN 400 million.
Peña Nieto and Videgaray did not comment on the accusations. Videgaray is currently a faculty member at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management.
President López Obrador reacts
On Wednesday, López Obrador said prosecutors should air as much about the alleged corruption as possible without jeopardizing the investigation.
“You have to protect due process, but you also have to make it as transparent as you can,” López Obrador said. “I would say everything, that public life should be more public each day. Those named are going to be called in and they will have to give statements.”
According to López Obrador, ex-presidents Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto should be called to testify after Emilio Lozoya’s explosive claims.
The FGR seized Lozoya's assets and properties
Emilio Lozoya's properties seized by the Attorney General's Office cover the economic losses caused by the irregular purchase of fertilizer plant Agronitrogenados.
AG Alejandro Gertz Manero said the government department seized assets and properties in Mexico and abroad. He added that Mexican authorities continue to seize assets in Europe and other locations.
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