•CORRUPTION: The former head of Mexico’s state-owned oil company (Pemex) accused former president Enrique Peña Nieto of engaging in a systematic corruption scheme in which he used millions of dollars in corporate bribes to fund his presidential campaign and pay off lawmakers who supported his government policies.
•ALLEGATIONS: In a 60-page statement presented to federal prosecutors on August 11, Emilio Lozoya, who is himself facing corruption charges, argues that under direct orders from the Peña Nieto and then campaign chief Luis Videgaray, he handled millions in bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
•DOCUMENT: “Peña Nieto and Luis Videgaray created a scheme of corruption in the federal government, in which the common denominator was that all the people who supported in some way the presidential campaign had to be recompensed or repaid”, Lozoya wrote in his leaked statement. The Mexican Attorney General confirmed the document’s authenticity.
•SCANDAL: Lozoya also accused other 16 former Mexican high ranking officials, including former presidents Felipe Calderón and Carlos Salinas de Gortari, of engaging in illegal acts. The allegations contained in Lozoya’s document have yet to be proven before a court but Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has said the allegations are “authentic”.
