Panama Papers Show President Pena Nieto's 'Favorite Contractor' Hid $100M teleSUR English
go to original April 5, 2016

Oxfam Mexico Concerned About Those Named in Panama Papers Leak’ (EM TV Online)

It’s been a rough week for Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, first outed for illegal electoral campaign tactics through confessions of an elite hacker, and now implicated in the Panama Papers through his friend and financier who hid US$100 million in offshore tax havens with the help of Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca.

Juan Armando Hinojosa, Peña Nieto’s so-called “favorite contractor,” set up a complex network of trusts as a Mossack Fonseca client shortly after a corruption scandal implicating one of his construction companies blew up in Mexico. The case, known as Casa Blanca, concerned a US$7 million mansion built and registered by the firm and acquired by current first lady Angelica Rivera.

Looking to safeguard his fortune amid fraud allegations, Hinojosa established nine entities spread over New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands in the name of his elderly mother and mother-in-law beginning in 2015. He, his wife, and their children were named as beneficiaries in case of death.

Through the scheme, Hinojosa and his wife “donated” lumps of money to their mothers after hiding the savings in shell companies.

Last year, comptroller Virgilio Andrade, appointed by Peña Nieto and responsible for investigating the Casa Blanca real estate case, cleared all parties in the scandal of any wrongdoing.



Hinojosa’s Grupo Higa had also been granted the multi-million dollar contract for Mexico’s first high speed train, but he lost the tender without explanation after the mansion scandal broke. The business later won another multi-million dollar contract for construction on Peña Nieto’s presidential hangar.

Read the rest at teleSUR

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