In the past three weeks, the Mexican government has undertaken a massive search for bank information on the former president Enrique Peña Nieto, his former legal adviser to the Presidency and several members of his cabinet, including former Secretary of the Treasury, José Antonio Meade, who was a candidate for the presidency in 2018.
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Dozens of official documents, obtained exclusively by Univision, show that the Ministry of Finance is developing an investigation of “patrimonial evolution” that involves the closest circle of Peña grandson, to his ex-wife Angélica Rivera, to her children and to relatives of her collaborators.
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Univision Investiga obtained the documents through a source in the banking system, who considered that the investigation is a “unpublished hunt” against former cabinet officials, especially in the midst of the crisis over the coronavirus.
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“I hope that my critical opinions on the performance of this government are unrelated to the investigation,” said José Narro, former secretary of health at Enrique Peña Nieto, who appears in the documents among the officials investigated.
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April 14th, 50 banks in Mexico received requests so that they give information about accounts of the former president, his family and former members of his cabinet, that ruled Mexico between 2012 and 2018. The government seems to be urgent. According to the documents, they demanded that the banks respond by May 6.
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The investigation originates from an application dated March 26, 2020. In it, the Secretary of the Public Function, Irma Sandoval, asked the National Banking and Securities Commission to collect the information with the banks. The Commission is an agency of the Treasury of Mexico.
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When asked about the authenticity and content of the documents, a spokesman for the Civil Service said they were analyzing whether they could give an answer, since their duty in any investigation is “the care of due process.” Two sources, one in the government and one in the financial system, told Univision that the documents are authentic. Univision Investigates He also obtained emails showing how these requirements got from the government to the banks.
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In addition to Peña, his ex-wife and his children Paulina, Nicole, Alejandro and Diego Alejandro, information is requested from “economic dependents” of the former president. The investigation of its ex-collaborators is carried out, according to the request, “with the purpose of strengthening the aforementioned investigation.”
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Univision sent interview requests to Peña grandson through different channels, but received no response. Maritza Díaz, mother of Diego Alejandro, son of the president and who is a minor, said that she has nothing to contribute. ” My son only receives a monthly pension from his fatherHe added. Univision was unable to locate Angelica Rivera nor to the adult children of Peña Nieto.
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The document in which the Mexican government asks banks to investigate the accounts of former President Peña Nieto: Gallery
The letter with the application instructs the 50 banks that, if any of the investigated has an account, they must send certified copies and spreadsheets to the Public Function, explaining the history of the account statements. The information should include copies of contracts, records of signatures and bank movements of any of your checking, savings, bonds, deposits, titles, investments and credits accounts and movements in exchange offices.
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In the list of banks ordered to deliver the information are international institutions such as Deutsche Bank México, HSBC México, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China México and Barclays Bank México.
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All this in the period from December 1, 2012 to November 30, 2018, that is, the years it lasted Peña grandson as president.
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Univision Investigates He also had access to other very similar offices, also dated March 26, which the Ministry of Public Function sent to the banks.
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The documents required, in the same terms, bank details of Humberto Castillejos, who was legal adviser to the Presidency with Peña grandson. This application was assigned the investigation number 033/2020. For Castillejos they set an investigation period from 2012 until June 2017, when he left the post at the presidential house. Castillejos did not respond to an interview request.
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The third investigated in that package was José Narro Robles, former Secretary of Health of Peña grandson, and his wife. They were assigned research number 036/2020. Narro said that he is officially unaware of any investigation into his person or his wife and has never had anything to hide regarding the evolution of his assets.
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“I will be attentive to any request made to me by the authority, because apart from my family, the most valuable thing I have built in my life is my honor,” said Narro.
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That same day, information was requested about the former secretary of Communications and Transportation of Peña Nieto, Gerardo Ruiz Esparza, and his wife. Ruiz Esparza died on April 1 of a stroke. A source from the Treasury assured Univision that the investigation into Ruiz Esparza will continue with his family, after his death. Univision was unable to locate his widow.
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Ex-candidate, also investigated
The first investigation this year, registered under number 001/2020, was sent to the Treasury a few days earlier, on March 13. In that profession, the Public Function issued instructions to the Treasury to collect bank information on José Antonio Meade, who was Secretary of Finance and Foreign Relations of Peña Nieto. In 2018, he was also a presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party.
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The petition on Meade It included his wife, Juana Cuevas, and their three children José Ángel, Dionisio and Magdalena, she, 17 years old. A source from the team close to Meade He replied that the former official, who left the public administration in 2017, has made his assets transparent and “has not been notified of any investigation that involves him.”
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Government requirements expressly require banks to refrain from reporting requests “In order not to commit acts that could hinder the investigations”. They can only notify them, the document also says, if their accounts are blocked as a result of that investigation.
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The source that delivered the documents to Univision explained that, under normal conditions, they would receive such requests a few days after they were issued. This time it took almost three weeks due to the coronavirus crisis, according to this source. Only on April 15, banks began to process applications.
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Univision Investiga also obtained a copy of the instructions that the National Banking Commission sent to the banks to initiate the investigation. It appears classified as “urgent and confidential”. This document requests that the data resulting from the investigation be sent to the Treasury within 15 business days. The Commission warned the banks that, if they do not meet the deadline, they would be penalized.
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“In other administrations, these offices were sent through the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Treasury, but not so,” said the source, who asked that his identity not be revealed, for fear of losing his job. “The one that has been sending the offices is the Public Function, they are on the hunt,” added the source, who gave the documents to Univision.
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A specialist in money laundering investigations explained that the course of the investigation through the Public Service seeks to check whether what these officials declared at the time as their assets is consistent with the bank information of them and their close relatives. If the information does not coincide, proceedings could be initiated for illicit enrichment against them, and these could lead to the freezing of their accounts or the imposition of informal preventive detention.
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Other Cabinet Members
The same source that shared these recent documents, explained that in the spring of 2019 the banks had already responded to a first package of requests for bank information about other members of Peña Nieto’s cabinet.
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On June 19, 2019, the Secretariat of the Public Function requested, in terms similar to those of March 2020, banking requirements on the former Secretary of Energy, Pedro Joaquín Coldwell and his wife, with number 035/2019. Coldwell told Univision that all of his assets are lawful. “All my assets and income appear in my financial statements and in the fiscal statements, which I submitted in due time and form to the authorities,” said the former secretary.
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That same day they asked for information from the ex-secretary of Economy, Ildefonso Guajardo, with the number 036/2019 and the ex-secretary of the Treasury, Luis Videgaray, his wife and their three daughters. Univision was unable to locate them.
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A month later, on July 18, 2019, they also requested an investigation. former prosecutor general Alberto Elías, his wife and two children. Several media in Mexico published that the Financial Intelligence Unit was also investigating it. He did not respond to messages from Univision.
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A month later, in August 2019, they also requested the bank details of the former Interior Minister, Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, his wife and two children. The results of these investigations have not been released.
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“All my assets, like those of my family, have been declared, this administration has been asking for this information for a long time and I have nothing more to add,” Osorio Chong said when asked.
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Two experts, who analyzed the documents at Univision’s request, noted that the Ministry is consolidating the investigations in an article of the law for public servants that allows it “to verify the evolution of the assets of the declarants”.
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The bank source that delivered the documents said that in previous administrations this type of investigation began in the Treasury, not in the Public Service. “But this has been the case in this government. Since December 2018, we have received hundreds of requests for information from former officials of different levels”, he added.
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President López Obrador He had announced at the beginning of his six-year term that he would not investigate the former presidents. In October 2019, he told Univision Investiga that he would only investigate Peña Nieto if a popular consultation ordered him to.
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In February 2020, the newspaper The Wall Street Journal He cited official sources, saying that Peña Nieto was under investigation. López Obrador replied that he was not aware of a complaint against the former president. “We as the Executive have not filed any complaint, so I cannot say that it exists,” he said. The Mexican newspaper El Universal had also published that President López Obrador instructed his cabinet to investigate Peña Nieto and his family.
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