Sedena Leaks documents detail trips to Europe, Japan, and the U.S.; five military support personnel were commissioned on a flight to Houston and another six on a European tour, as was previously the style with the Presidential General Staff, supposedly now defunct.
Among the files hacked from the Sedena by the Guacamaya collective, there are documents of trips of President Lopez Obrador’s family members to Houston, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Japan, accompanied by military personnel.
One of the trips reported in confidential military reports took place in the second half of January 2020 to Houston, Texas, where at that time the eldest son of President Lopez Obrador lived in the so-called “Casa Gris”.
In a series of documents and records prepared by military personnel, it is stated that President López Obrador’s wife and one of his sons traveled on January 18th, 2020 to Houston “with the purpose of carrying out private activities”, for which five military personnel were commissioned.
At the time of this trip, José Ramón had moved into “La Casa Gris” four months earlier, which at that time was owned by a former senior executive of the oil services company Baker Hughes, which in the current six-year term has accumulated billions of pesos in contracts in Pemex.
In the “La Casa Gris” report published at the end of January 2022 by Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) and Latinus, it was proven that José Ramón López Beltrán and his partner had lived in that residence between September 2019 and July 2020.
In the Sedena Leaks documents, it is mentioned that to accompany the President’s wife and a son on his trip to Houston, five military personnel were commissioned: Lieutenant Colonel Marco Antonio Palomares Sánchez, First Infantry Captain Aldo César González Bobadilla, and Second Lieutenant Nancy Aglae Jiménez Serrano, as assistants; Infantry Major Carlos Tiburcio Zárate Priss, as a bodyguard, and Major Tania Carolina García Martínez, in support of medical service. All flew on commercial airlines.
The security protocol followed for the President’s family is similar to that followed in previous six-year terms by the Presidential General Staff, which according to López Obrador has already disappeared, although there is evidence that in reality, it is only in recess, as documented by MCCI in a report in December 2021.
In fact, the one who made the arrangements for military support for the trip to Houston was Lieutenant Colonel of Infantry of the General Staff, Marco Antonio Palomares.
Subsequently, on November 21st, 2020, three other military personnel were ordered to be commissioned to accompany the president’s wife and son on a second trip to Houston, also “for the purpose of carrying out private activities,” as read in the hacked documents.
In the end, however, the military support was canceled. The president’s wife canceled her trip, although two of the president’s children did fly commercially to Houston, according to military reports.
Trip to Europe and Japan
On September 8th, 2020, a request was sent to the private secretary of the head of Sedena to commission six military personnel to support the President’s wife, who the following month would travel to France, Italy, Germany, and Poland, “in order to carry out official and private activities”.
Four of the military personnel assigned to this trip worked as assistants, one as an escort, and one more on medical duty.
The Presidency had informed that Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller’s trip was on behalf of President López Obrador, to negotiate with European leaders the restitution to Mexico of objects of historical value, including pre-Hispanic codices.
The official report was that the trip was to France, Italy, and Austria, but in the hacked military reports it is mentioned that the itinerary would be extended to Poland and Germany. However, the military report did not include the logbook or tickets for this trip.
Through requests for information, the National Anti-Corruption Organization obtained in March 2021 documents that revealed that the cost of that trip to Europe by Gutiérrez Müller amounted to 364,000 Mexican pesos, although it was not known that she had traveled with a military retinue.
A year before that tour of Europe, in October 2019, the Sedena reported the trip to Japan of the president’s wife and son, accompanied by four military personnel for aide and protection service.
That trip to Japan was to represent the President of Mexico at the enthronement ceremony of Naruhito as Emperor of Japan.
On July 16th, 2022, Sedena prepared a confidential report in which it is mentioned that on that day the son of the president flew to London, in the Aeromexico airline, accompanied by the son of the Mexican ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The return was scheduled for August 7th of the same year, and according to the military report, during the three weeks of the president’s son’s stay in the United Kingdom, he was “under the tutelage of Mrs. Josefa González Blanco Ortiz Mena, Mexico’s ambassador to the United Kingdom”.
References:
(S/f-f). Contralacorrupcion.mx. Recuperado el 8 de octubre de 2022, de https://contralacorrupcion.mx/sedenaleaks-familia-de-amlo-volo-a-houston-cuando-el-hijo-mayor-acababa-de-estrenar-la-casa-gris/
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