One Billionaire Took in Millions in Deal at Heart of Pemex Probe
- State oil company accused of overpaying for fertilizer company
- Salinas’s bank got $406 million loan paid off as part of deal
Photographer: Susana Gonzalez/Bloomberg
This article is for subscribers only.
For months now, much of Mexico has been riveted by a corruption scandal unfolding at its state oil company, the country’s largest such probe in decades. A business executive has been arrested, others were banned from government positions and President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has made it a prime example of his commitment to root out graft.
But what has escaped government scrutiny is just how much one of the two sweetheart deals in question helped out a bank owned by billionaire Ricardo Salinas Pliego, a Lopez Obrador ally who has had a previous run-in with regulators over accusations of self-dealing.