Romero Deschamps' son guarded part of his fortune in fiscal paradises
Alejandro Romero Durán, son of the deposed trade union leader of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex) Carlos Romero Deschamps, acquired actions in a company constituted in British Virgin Islands with which he sought to buy real estate, collection cars, yachts, antiques and jewels. From the incorporation of him to the firm in 2009, Romero Durán registered as part of the assets of him 10 properties established in Mexico. He is currently investigated by the Mexican authorities together with his father and other members of his family for his alleged participation in a scheme of triangulation of resources that includes facade companies and international transfers. The opaque society and most of the goods that are now revealed as part of the Global Research Pandora Papers escaped the radar of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the Mexican government body that made a tracking of the Banking Properties and Accounts of the Family of the Exlide Petrolero to denounce him before the Attorney General's Office.
Alejandro is one of Romero Deschamps, a controversial character of political and trade union life in the country linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).For years, the Mexican media exhibited his ostentatious life and his family: trips, yachts, fine watches and luxury cars.The size of his fortune has always been questioned by various groups of Pemex dissident workers who have considered his lifestyle with its income as its income as a union and legislator of the PRI.In the 2009 documents, where his son Alejandro took part in the control of a company established in British Virgin Islands, this is presented as “merchant”.In addition, he declared that his funds came from the assets he inherited from his paternal grandfather 26 years ago.
This version is unbelievable for oil workers who knew the origins of the Romero family in Tamaulipas.Octaviano Hernández Martínez, who met the former Children's Petroleum Director, says that Romero Deschamps lived with his parents and brothers in a colony called El Gulf."He was from a poor family, they were not wealthy, they were not oil tankers," says the 82 -year -old man.Romero Deschamps' dad (who allegedly bequeathed part of his heritage to his grandson's grandson) did not seem a wealthy man, says the oil retiree.Therefore it is unlikely that he would have accumulated some wealth."The Lord was a worker where he could, up to there ... they lived in a neighborhood, there were no luxurious houses," he says.
The children of Romero Deschamps have not been left out of the accusations that surround their father and have been pointed out for being part of the relative network that he uses as testaferros to hide his fortune, according to the investigations of the authorities.The best known has been Paulina, who used to publish photos of her travel around her in her networks.Alejandro, on the contrary, has maintained a more discreet role.Now, within the framework of this global investigation, it is known that he used an opaque structure to protect a dozen properties stationed in Mexico City, the State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Quintana Roo and Hidalgo.Although Alejandro and his father were sought to know his version about what was stated in this investigation, there was no response.
Steller Overseas Holdings is a firm created in 2001 and subsequently registered by the Aramo Trust Co. Limited office in British Virgin Islands.In 2009, Romero Durán took part in the control of it by taking 30,000 actions, while a woman identified as María Cristina Rosalía Cid Durán acquired another 20,000.Both signed an agreement with Trident Trust so that it would serve as custodian of their wearer actions, of which they were the beneficiaries.These types of actions provide one of the highest levels of secrecy, since they leave no trace on the identity of the real owner of a society and therefore have been a fertile field to hide opaque or illicit business money.
When Romero Durán acquired shares of the opaque society, his father had more than a decade and a half as the leader of the oil union and previously, between 1979 and 2003, he had held a position of legislator in the Congress of the Union four times.As a general rule, when opening a company based in a fiscal paradise, direct relatives of this type of characters are usually treated as a politically exposed person (PEP), a category that forces offices to make a more exhaustive review of the origins ofthe funds or goods that you want to protect an opaque company.However, in the filtration documents there are no indications that Trident had carried out a detailed investigation on the income of Alejandro Romero Durán's income.
In August 2012, Romero Durán acquired the actions of Cid Durán and also put them under Trident's shelter.Four months later, he asked the office to terminate his custody contract to exchange the carrier actions for nominative actions, which he would appear as a holder.In January 2013, once the office confirmed that the custody agreement had been canceled, Romero Durán requested to make arrangements for the company to be inactive.However, this was not realized, since the firm remains active, according to the documents consulted in the Mercantile Registry of that jurisdiction.
At least 4 of the 10 goods that in 2009 were under the shelter of the opaque company are registered in the name of Romero Durán, according to the documents collected in the public records of the property.Among these properties are a Penthouse in the Polanco area, in the Mexican capital, which he bought in October 2007 at a price of 6.2 million Mexican pesos (more than $ 300,000 to the current exchange rate).Two kilometers from there he has another department for which he paid 2 million pesos the same year.
In the hotel zone of Cancun, the Mexican Caribbean Tourist Jewel, Alejandro and his brother José Carlos bought in 2006 a housing of 1,089 square meters to their aunt María Guadalupe Lidia Durán Limas.The residence, which at that time had a commercial value of 3.9 million pesos (almost 200,000 dollars to the current change) had two terraces (one with a pool and the other with hydromassage tub) and four bedrooms with study, stay andbar.The records cover such old properties as a lot of 950 square meters in Guanajuato that Romero Durán bought a former pemex employee in 1993, when he was just 22 years old.
A fifth property linked to the offshore of Romero Durán is located in the Narvarte neighborhood, in the mayor of Benito Juárez of the Mexican capital, although in the registers of sale of this property in Mexico City there is no trace of the son of the unionist as owner,but a company called buildings Alcar S.A.of C.V.which paid 5.2 million pesos in 2013 for the property.
Ongoing research
For just over two and a half decades, Romero Deschamps directed with total opacity the reins of the Petroleum Workers' Union of the Mexican Republic (STPRM), one of the most powerful in Latin America.He always resisted transparent his finances and promoted judicial protections so as not to publicize information to his members.In the governments of Vicente Fox, Felipe Calderón and Enrique Peña Nieto, the investigations that indicated him for illicit enrichment and money laundering were filed.With the arrival of López Obrador, the accusations were fueled on him and new complaints were added in the Prosecutor's Office that came from dissident groups within the union.In addition, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) undertook a review of the rosemary assets for the banking system that gave rise to the beginning of inquiries in the Attorney General's Office.
Currently, the authorities investigate the operations that the politician carried out with his relatives, among which are his wife, sister, children, nephews and other members of his clan.Transactions between them, according to the complaint prepared by the FIU, do not have a logical origin or a transactional profile, since they cannot be based on commercial activities or lawful business.“It was detected that relatives of Carlos Romero Deschamps present a series of operations that are considered unjustified, which have a high degree of probability that they come from an illegal source derived from some type of diversion of resources, constituting possible acts of corruption due toThe life of luxuries that they have ”, stands out in the document to which the country has had access.
The former union leader and his relatives triangulated resources through deposits, transfers and property purchases in Mexico and abroad.These operations - which according to the FIU have no justification and point to money laundering schemes - sought to hide the origin of assets using paper companies and international transfers."The resources operated within the financial system by the subjects analyzed are not justified because their high amount and the dynamics of the transmissions show strange or anomalous operations to ordinary commercial and financial practices," was settled in the complaint of the intelligence body.
One of the investigated is Alejandro Romero Durán, who through a bank account recorded deposits for 75.8 million pesos (3.7 million dollars) and withdrawals for 75.4 million pesos between 2012 and 2017. He also received aLoan of five million pesos of section 34 of the oil union, although it was not registered as an employee.Another sign that aroused suspicions in the FIU is that he acquired various properties in exclusive areas, valued in high sums.Among them, for example, the purchase of a property in Polanco, in the Mexican capital, valued at 16.2 million pesos, which was not reported in its annual fiscal statement.This is different from that which Romero guarded in opaque society.
Despite the tracking that the FIU made of the assets and real estate of the family of Romero Deschamps, 8 of the 10 properties that Alejandro Romero had protected in the company of British Virgin Islands in 2009 had not been identified by the body.The only two properties that the FIU had under its radar were a property in the Naucalpan Hippodrome neighborhood and a house in Cancun.
Romero Deschamps' relatives have forged a diverse business career.They have at least eight companies in Mexico and seven abroad, according to a review made in trade records and complemented with information collected by financial intelligence.Mexican societies have tax addresses in the State of Mexico, Quintana Roo, Hidalgo, Guanajuato and Mexico City.Among its commercial turns is the repair and maintenance of aircraft, the manufacture and marketing of pesticides, cleaning services, the sale of real estate and the construction of subdivisions.
At least two of these companies have received government contracts.Miranda pest control, for example, provided fumigation services at the facilities of the Petroleum Workers Union.ODIS AVERSA S.A.of C.V.He has provided services to the governments of Tabasco, Veracruz and Puebla, as well as the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), to the National Tourism Promotion Fund (Fonatur) and the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).Contracts range from the supply of laundry equipment to the construction of wastewater treatment plants and water culture promotion strategies.
ODIS AVERSA S.A DE C.V. —Of which, according to the FIU, Alejandro Romero is a shareholder - made the purchase of various cars for very high amounts between 2006 and 2011. “It was identified that it is of trade activity that of soft drinks and purified water, in addition to the fact that before the Treasury said he devoted himself to other services such as photographic machines, ”says the financial body among its findings. Between February 2016 and December 2018, the company received deposits for 76.4 million pesos (3.8 million dollars to current exchange) through checks. In addition, between 2014 and 2018 the firm carried out operations with credit cards for 19.4 million pesos. For the intelligence authorities, these transactions were made with the sole purpose of having a mechanism to introduce the active financial system of illegal origin and thus make it difficult to identify its origin and final destination. "Otherwise it is impossible to justify the actions of the legal entity indicated," concludes the complaint document.
Last February, the country announced that since December 2018, when Andrés Manuel López Obrador came to power, the Attorney General of the Republic (FGR) had opened at least 12 inquiries against the former oil leader, but none had arrived before thejudge.Nine had already been filed and only three continued in investigation under the Prosecutor's Office specialized in fighting corruption.The crimes that were investigated pointed to fraud, illicit enrichment and money laundering.In response to a new request for information within the framework of this global investigation, the Anti -Corruption Prosecutor's Office reported that of the three folders that continued to process - two of them filed by the FIU - one was “determined by incompetence” because the conduct toInvestigating in that file was not a crime due to corruption.
Andrea Cárdenas (fifth element Lab), Mathieu Tourliere (process), Peniley Ramírez and Claudia Ocaranza (Univisión) collaborated in the preparation of this report.
