⁍ A former head of Mexican state oil firm Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) accused of corruption has sought to pin the blame for wrongdoing on his former boss, ex-president Enrique Pena Nieto.
⁍ Former Pemex chief executive Emilio Lozoya on Tuesday filed a complaint saying Pena Nieto and his ex-finance minister Luis Videgaray had instructed him to direct bribes to Pena Nieto’s 2012 election campaign.
⁍ Lozoya’s allegations that Pena Nieto used illicit funds to secure votes and influence have raised the stakes in a politicized probe.
– The former CEO of Mexico’s state oil company filed a corruption complaint against his former boss and a top aide Tuesday, accusing them of taking bribes to secure votes, Reuters reports. Emilio Lozoya, former CEO of Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, filed the complaint against ex-President Enrique Pena Nieto and former finance minister Luis Videgaray, claiming they ordered him to direct bribes to Pena Nieto’s 2012 campaign and to buy votes in Congress. “The man who later became president and his finance minister are the ones who ordered him to give this money to various foreign election advisers who worked for the campaign,” said Attorney General Alejandro Gertz in a video address. Lozoya said he received more than $100 million from Brazilian firm Odebrecht, most of which went to advisers on Pena Nieto’s campaign. Odebrecht has admitted to paying bribes in Mexico. Lozoya said the same two men ordered 120 million pesos to be handed to a member of Congress and five senators to help the passage of economic reforms in 2013 and 2014 during Pena Nieto’s presidency, Gertz added, without naming the lawmakers. Foremost among those reforms was Pena Nieto’s opening of the oil and gas market to private investment, an overhaul which Lopez Obrador has tried to roll back and repeatedly attacked as tainted by graft. The former Pemex boss also alleged that millions of pesos went to legislators to win approval for an electoral reform on the instructions of Pena Nieto and Videgaray. Pena Nieto and Videgaray have not been charged with anything, and have previously denied any wrongdoing.
Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/mexico-corruption/update-1-former-pemex-boss-points-finger-at-ex-mexican-president-in-graft-scandal-idUSL1N2FD1KZ