Mexican leader calls corruption accusations against son baseless

Mexico City, Feb 1 (EFE).- Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Tuesday that authorities are already looking into allegations of a conflict of interest in connection with his son’s having resided in the Texas home of an executive of a company which did business with state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

“The investigation is open: to learn whose house it is, what contracts were received from Pemex, who authorized them,” the president, known as AMLO, said at his morning press conference.

“They will not find anything, anything at all,” he said.

Last Friday, online media outlet Latinus and the NGO Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI), said that the president’s oldest child, 40-year-old Jose Ramon Lopez Beltran, and his wife lived for a time in a Houston residence appraised at $1 million owned by Keith L. Schilling, a former executive of oilfield services giant Baker Hughes.

In August 2019, Baker Hughes signed an $85 million contract with Pemex, according to the report.

A Jan. 2, 2020, announcement of Schilling’s appointment as CEO of Basic Energy Services, Inc. said that the new chief executive’s most recent prior position was president of Baker Hughes Canada from November 2018-December 2019.

Lopez Beltran and his wife, oil industry executive Carolyn Adams, moved from the home ostensibly owned by Schilling to another in the Houston area that is also valued at around $1 million.

Latinus and MCCI disseminated photos illustrating the couple’s opulent lifestyle in Houston.

Well not denying that his son and daughter-in-law live well, AMLO insists that neither Jose or any other members of his family have had any input on government decisions.

MCCI and Latinus should go to the Attorney General’s Office with evidence of wrongdoing, the leftist president said.

“If they have evidence, let them present it,” AMLO said. “We don’t protect anyone. I am here to carry out the popular mandate to uproot corruption.”

He denounced the director of Latinus, journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, as a “mercenary” and “coup-monger.”

Loret de Mola and AMLO have a long history of mutual antagonism and Sin Embargo, another news website, published in March 2021 a story showing that Latinus has received financial from opposition politicians.

The Mexican president has also been critical of MCCI for accepting foreign funding, notably from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). EFE ppc/dr