RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A stain has surfaced from the hitherto spotless anti-corruption speech of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Several videos, released on Thursday by the Latinus news website, show one of the president’s brothers, Pío López Obrador, receiving cash envelopes from David León, the current director of the new state-owned pharmaceutical distributor.
The footage dates back to 2015 and shows the handing over of support for electoral activities by the then leader of the Morena party in the state of Chiapas. León had been making such payments for a year and a half, according to statements on the videos.
It amounts to approximately two million pesos, the equivalent of US$100,000. The Mexican president asked for the case to be investigated and removed the official involved in the money delivery from office.
In one of the videos, dated June 2015, David León, who at the time was working as a consultant, visits Pío López Obrador’s house to deliver a package that he claims contains one million pesos (US$50,000).
Then they discuss the next delivery of a further one million pesos. León then asks him to advise his brother about the source of the money. “Let the attorney know, using your means, that we are supporting him. The point is that he realizes he has support,” he says. “Brother, brother. He knows, he knows perfectly well. Besides, I have already sent him messages”, answers Pío López Obrador.
In another recording, dated May 2015, the president’s brother and David León met in a restaurant for another cash delivery, wrapped in an orange-colored package. At the time, Pío López Obrador takes notes in a black notebook while complaining about the delays in payment and that the amount is incomplete. There are 30,000 pesos missing. “Delivery is monthly.” León justified: “I’ve been late a few times, but today we’re here…” “Yes, yes, I understand brother. Okay,” says the other.
The president said on Friday morning at a press conference he is unaware if this money was declared to the National Electoral Institute (INE), which is mandatory in such cases. “All I know is that many people contributed funds to the campaign. It was about people’s support to finance the Chiapas campaign, fuel, sound equipment, and so on,” the president said. “Morena did not win,” recalled López Obrador.
The president ordered the videos to be delivered to the Prosecutor’s Office and that his brother and David León be deposed in court. “I told León to respond to the denunciation and tell the truth. I had known that these videos would be released for five days, so I told David León he couldn’t be in control of the pharmaceutical company,” he said. “We are looking for someone else while this is clarified and David is clean.”
“#Loret Chapter 12. #ExclusiveLatinus. The videos of President Lopez Obrador’s brother receiving money for the campaign. Who is delivering? The new anti-corruption czar for medicines, David Leon. @CarlosLoret #LatinusOriginals #InformationForYou” https://t.co/ZW0QuUJnft
– Latinus (@latinus_us) August 21st, 2020″
León, who had just been appointed director of the drug distributor company and who until recently served as Civil Defense coordinator, acknowledged the veracity of the video. “From November 2013 to November 2018 I was a consultant, not a public servant. My way of supporting the Movement was by raising funds among acquaintances for the holding of assemblies and other activities,” he said on Twitter. Before the scandal, López Obrador had defined him as “one of the best officials in the Government”.
The videos were released amid the Lozoya case. Evidence related to this case came to light last week: a video recording that shows a group of politicians taking bribes and the denunciation of former Pemex director Emilio Lozoya in which he implicated three ex-presidents and 14 other politicians in corruption cases. López Obrador requested the release of this material as a way to “cleanse public life”. Now, the footage of a cash delivery, a scene similar to those López Obrador so criticized, is turning against him.
The president said on Friday that the leak of these videos stems from actions taken to investigate the Lozoya case. He stressed the significant differences between the corruption scandal of the time and the video in which his brother is shown. In the first, there are US$200 million in “bribes and corruption of public money” and in the second, it is “about two million pesos [US$100,000]”.
This is not the first time that López Obrador has been affected by a video scandal. In 2004, a recording was released in which René Bejarano, the coordinator of the PRD party in Mexico City and a politician close to the current president – who was the head of the capital’s government at the time – was seen receiving bundles of cash from Argentine-Mexican entrepreneur Carlos Ahumada.
Bejarano was arrested and later acquitted. That same year, Gustavo Ponce, López Obrador’s Secretary of Finance, was shown in a video betting money at the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas. He was dismissed by the then head of government and later the Prosecutor’s Office indicted him for unjust enrichment. The current president, who was then preparing his candidacy for the 2006 presidential election, said he was the victim of a plot to undermine his campaign.
Source: El País