Whooops!

8 September 2012

Very late in the Elector Tribunal hearings, there were accusations by the Citizen’s Movement and AMLO camp that State of Mexico funds were transferred illegally to the Peña Nieto campaign (via third parties). At the time, as Aguachile noted, the evidence was flimsy, and inflammatory accusations that Banco de México President Agustín Carstens was covering up the illegal transfers were seen as preposterous.

As my favorite villain (Auric Goldfinger) once said, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. But thee times is enemy Although Carstens doesn’t seem to have any involvement in any of this, it does appear that Scotiabank did change documents on receipts from the State of Mexico, ostensibly to correct a routing error. HOWEVER…

Raúl Murrieta Cummings, the State of Mexico’s Treasurer, now admits that the state made at least three funds transfers to individuals — supposedly resulting from “bank error.” Presumably the transfer that got the Citizen’s Movement all hot and bothered was one.

Murrieta when asked about these transfer, said that one was to a “una señora” — which tells us nothing, and seemed to be meant that one shouldn’t look too deeply into the matter. Coincidence?

Unverified photo of Marcos Gonzaléz Pak

That third admitted “misdirected payment”, has opened the way for “enemy action”… or at least unfriendly questioning of the state Treasurer by the leftist opposition parties. And, if it doesn’t only call into question the State of Mexico’s financial operations, it , it raises some seriousl questions about the way Scotiabank operates.

On July 26 of this year, the State of Mexico transferred to the Scotiabank account of one Marcos González Pak 50,000,000 pesos (about 4 milllion U.S. dollars). Marcos Gonzáles is the owner of a small manufacturing firm in Chihuahua which doesn’t seem to do any business, or provide anything to the government of the State of Mexico, and Mr. González refuses to divulge his political affiliations.