In his first year of government, López Obrador exhibited the wasteful spending of Peña Nieto with an invoice that he considered could be false. However, last year the Felipe Ángeles Airport awarded two contracts and made seven payments to the same supplier that in 2019 had been pointed out by AMLO.
(Mexicanos contra la corrupción).- Heres how it was that President Lopez Obrador though first accused a supplier of cost overruns and invoice simulation, and then hired her at AIFA
In September 2019, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador launched the accusation: the government of Enrique Peña Nieto had registered an overspending in the purchase of various personal hygiene items and slipped the idea that the disbursement was through a false invoice. Three years later, the government contracted the same supplier, but now for services at the Felipe Angeles International Airport (AIFA).
In his morning conference on September 6, 2019, López Obrador presented to the media a list of expenses of the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto for the purchase of various items for a flight of the presidential plane, and spoke of looting, abuses and waste in the past.
“There are those who cling to the same system of corruption, of excesses, of waste and from time to time you have to give them a ‘have one so they learn’, right? Then look what happened. Only one flight (…) this is backed up by invoices that will be delivered to you, so you won’t think it was an invention”, said AMLO that time when he showed the list of thousands of hygiene items purchased for the presidential airplane.
In the same conference the president doubted the validity of the invoices paid by the General Staff. “That is why double invoicing and other tax evasion mechanisms have to be made a felony, because it is very likely that in these cases they are false invoices,” he said.
Different media published one of the invoices shown by AMLO, which covered the payment of a little more than one million pesos for 1,265 pieces of hair gel, more than one thousand disposable razors, as well as toothpaste and toothbrushes, toilet water, nail clippers and shoe polish sponges.
The newspaper La Jornada published on that occasion that the invoice for these items was issued by Comercializadora Saranoel, and published a photograph of its fiscal address in the Peralvillo neighborhood, which corresponds to another business.
Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) traced the aforementioned invoice of Comercializadora Saranoel in the SAT portal, and was able to corroborate that it was not issued by a legal entity, but by an individual named María Inés Morales Téllez, on October 27, 2017. In the SAT verification system, the Presidency of the Republic appears as the recipient of the tax receipt.
MCCI went to the address identified in the invoice, at 104 Beethoven Street, in the Peralvillo neighborhood, where there is a commercial establishment with the legend Tecno Plastic, which offers real estate maintenance services. The history of Google Maps shows that the same premises, with the same sign, has been there since November 2016.
Now it is an AIFA supplier
The same supplier that in 2017 was pointed out by AMLO, is now a contractor of AIFA.
María Inés Morales Téllez, who in the name of Comercializadora Saranoel charged thousands of hygiene items for a Peña’s flight, has signed two contracts and has received at least seven payments in the obradorist government.
In a document that the Ministry of Finance provided to MCCI on resources transferred to AIFA, there is a list of payments made to the aforementioned supplier on November 4, 2022, for a total amount of 263 thousand pesos.
These payments correspond to a contract signed with AIFA in July 2022 for security equipment such as helmets, lamps, belts, whistles and seals, among other items.
In this invoice, María Inés Morales Téllez put as contact the following email address: [email protected], practically the same name of the company hired by the Peña Nieto government for flight utensils for the Presidential Airplane.
A second contract, which the Treasury had not made transparent, was signed with AIFA on October 12, for the sale of beekeeping suits, flesh gloves and bellows smokers.
“Referring to the contract signed with the individual María Inés Morales Téllez, Aeropuerto Internacional Felipe Ángeles SA de CV has two contracts from the fourth quarter of 2022,” the AIFA informed to a request for information from MCCI.
At least two more contracts signed in 2018 between María Inés Morales Téllez and the office of the Presidency of the Republic of Enrique Peña Nieto are public in the National Transparency Platform.
The first one, through a process of invitation to at least three persons, for the acquisition of materials and office supplies for an amount of 335 thousand pesos.
While in a second contract, also by invitation, computer consumables were acquired for an amount of 182 thousand pesos. In both cases, the responsible area was the Presidential General Staff.
TYT Newsroom
