Insufficent Funds
The on-going Odebrecht/Agronitrogenados scandal… combining alleged bribes to PEMEX officials (including then CEO Emilio Lozoya are estimated to have cost the Mexican state somewhere (in round numbers) about 800 million dollars in losses. The biggest single loss was flipping the scapped Agronitrogenado fertilizer plant from Altos Hornos de México (which we are told, could have been re-opened) back to its orginal owner (i.e. PEMEX) at a 200 million dollar mark-up.
Lozoya, after a year as a “cooperating witness” which was granted on, among other grounds, a good faith offer to reimburse the federal treasury for its losses.
Lozoya’a original offer was to pay back 200 million dollars, at 50 million a year for four years (plus interest), but after one excuse and another, it became clear he had no intention (or, perhaps, no ability) to reimburse the treasury, and was subsequently taken to prison (bribery and fraud being non-bailable offenses, permitting pre-trial detention). And… lo and behold!… Lozoya has offered to finally pony up.
Well…. five million anyway.
if even that. What Lozoya offered is to hand over to Pemex the deeds of his residence in the Lomas de Bezares neighborhood in Mexico City. According to his preliminary appraisals, the value of that residence is between 3.4 and 3.8 million dollars, which assuming it can be sold for that value is still short more than a million of what he is alleged to have personally pocketed. The 1.6 million or so also promised is to settle any claims for the other 600 million in losses, although that 800 million is still just an estimate.
Lozoya’s offer, while paltry, includes a “payment committment”… turing over the deeds to the house to the victim of the fraud (i.e., PEMEX) and making payments over three years on an installment plan.
For some reason, the Federal Prosecutor is not buying it, nor is the Presidency, nor is PEMEX. And Lozoya will have to sit in the slammer a while longer.
The Mex Files 