Former Pemex director Emilio Lozoya arrives in Mexico for graft trial, enters hospital

Former head of Mexico’s state-run oil company Pemex landed in Mexico early Friday after being extradited from Spain to face corruption charges and was immediately hospitalized, the Attorney General’s Office said.

Emilio Lozoya

landed shortly before 1 a.m. in Mexico City and received a medical check-up in the Attorney General’s Office hangar. The doctor found he was suffering from anemia, problems with his esophagus and generally poor health.

Lozoya’s family had requested a review by a private doctor as well, who found the same issues.

He was hospitalized at an unspecified location.

Lozoya had been scheduled to make his first appearance before a judge Friday, but it appeared unlikely that would proceed. The Attorney General’s Office said the judiciary had been advised of the situation and prosecutors were waiting to hear about the dates for his initial appearance.

Lozoya’s arrival was accompanied by great anticipation not only because he spent months on the lam, but because he dropped his fight against extradition and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors . His assistance could potentially aid additional corruption investigations concerning the administration of former President Enrique Peña Nieto, who governed from 2012 to 2018.

Emilio Lozoya has offered to talk

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has made rooting out corruption his main cause, and has said that Lozoya has offered to turn testify about bribery and corrupt contracts.

“He agreed voluntarily and made a commitment to talk about what happened in these alleged frauds he is accused of, and I think he will talk about Odebrecht and other types of crimes,” López Obrador said Thursday.

He was extradited to face charges equivalent to money laundering, bribery and conspiracy. Spanish police arrested him in the southern city of Malaga in February at Mexico’s request.

Odebrecht, AHMSA & Agro Nitrogenados

According to a document released by Spanish authorities, Altos Hornos de México (AHMSA) allegedly bribed Emilio Lozoya so that the company would be granted Pemex contracts. Lozoya then allegedly used this money to purchase a luxurious home. Alonso Ancira , the head of AHMSA, fled to Spain and was later arrested; however, he didn’t agree to his extradition.

In December 2013, Lozoya proposed the purchase of fertilizer plant Agro Nitrogenados , which was owned by Alonso Ancira.

The fertilizer plant was useless and reports warned against the purchase; however, Pemex went ahead with the operation and purchased it for USD $264 million and later invested USD $450 million to rehabilitate the plant.

In 2012, Emilio Lozoya allegedly asked Odebretch for money to support the PRI’s presidential campaign.

Odebretch allegedly gave Lozoya USD $4.5 million between April and November 2012. Some of the resources were supposedly used to purchase a home in Guerrero for $USD 1.9 million

Many in Mexico had expected Lozoya might implicate others in the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). There had been speculation that Lozoya, who helped run Peña Nieto’s 2012 campaign, used bribe money to get his boss elected.

But according to the court papers released Monday, Lozoya asked Oderbrecht for $4 million for the PRI campaign in 2012—and then spent half of it on a property in his wife’s name.

“In exchange for his help ... in March 2012, the defendant asked for a payment to help support the PRI political campaign,” according to Spain’s Audiencia Nacional. Between April, June and November—the elections were in July—the company deposited USD $4 million into accounts controlled by Lozoya’s family, but “part of this money was used on August 23, 2013, by his wife Marielle Helen Eckers to buy a property for USD $1.9 million in the state of Guerrero in Mexico.”

That appears to be a reference to a property in the Pacific coast resort of Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo that was briefly seized by Mexican authorities.

sg