Three companies reported the same address: Calle Tres, number 214, colonia Reforma, in the center of Tabasco. Segalmex assigned $113 million to a company linked to a billing firm. Grupo Comercial e Industrial Tenda, which has shared a domicile and legal representation with a billing firm from Villahermosa, received two contracts from Segalmex for 113 million pesos to supply corn and beans, despite lacking experience, infrastructure, and operational capacity to provide grain supply and logistics services. The assignments to Tenda were made in 2022 and 2023, when the corruption scandal at Segalmex had already erupted, an agency where the largest embezzlement of López Obrador's six-year term occurred, with accumulated observations amounting to billions of pesos, criminal complaints, former officials prosecuted, and a repeated pattern of irregular contracting. In commercial records consulted by MCCI, José Ignacio de la Cruz Montejo appears as the legal representative of Tenda, and at the same time as the representative of Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco, a company that the SAT has included in its definitive list of billing firms. Other linked companies are also located at that same address, which have reported as an alternate address a property located on Calle Ipequi, manzana 39, colonia Valle del Jaguar, in the Centro municipality of Tabasco, which is where the third company invited to participate in the Conagua procedure is established: Proyectos, Obras y Suministros del Sureste. Conagua invitation letters to three other linked companies. In another tender, called by the Tabasco State Secretariat of Education, dated early August 2019, the state agency itself directly invited the companies Choco Publicaciones and Comercializadora Centro Tabasqueño, which, according to their own invoices and contracts, are also established at Calle Tres, number 214, colonia Reforma. In another procedure of Invitation to at Least Three People, convened by the Directorate of Works of the Ayuntamiento of Jalapa, Tabasco, dated December 17, 2024, two months before the SAT initiated its investigation into Construagregados Hopelchen and Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco, both companies that are now officially known to be operationally simulating were invited to bid alongside the company Construcción, Rehabilitación y Conservación de Obras de México. In a difficult-to-explain contrast, he simultaneously appears as a shareholder of Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco SA de CV, a company identified by the SAT as a phantom or 'billing firm,' which has operated from a commercial plaza owned by the Bermúdez Requena family and was a contractor during the government of Adán Augusto López. Miguel Ángel's case is not isolated. Both companies have declared their domicile to be Árboles 101, interior 12, a property owned by the Bermúdez Requena family. The Superior Audit of the Federation (ASF) reviewed contract PSG/84/2022, whereby Segalmex awarded Grupo Comercial e Industrial Tenda the acquisition of white national corn and the services of transfer from origin to destination. This Sunday morning, he announced that he would leave the leadership of Morena in the Senate. The 15th floor of the largest business tower in Tabasco is registered in the name of Corporación Inmobiliaria Villahermosa, a company in which Adán Augusto López is a co-owner. Some of the companies were integrated into a network that grew during Adán Augusto López's government in Tabasco and later extended to at least six states governed by Morena and the federal sphere. The network, made up of at least 20 companies, has obtained contracts exceeding 2,360 million pesos in Tabasco, Campeche, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Quintana Roo, as well as in federal dependencies, with a notable presence in Conagua and Segalmex, where the largest corruption case of López Obrador's six-year term occurred. Some of the benefited companies have had as a partner, administrator, or representative Alejandro Márquez Rodríguez, a Tabasco businessman nicknamed 'The Goose,' a very close friend of Adán Augusto López, who even accompanied him on his tour as a Morena pre-candidate for the Presidency of the Republic in 2024. MCCI sought a statement from Adán Augusto through a questionnaire sent on Friday to his contact email at the Senate. In the same phantom company, Carlos Alberto Toscar Ramón has participated as a power of attorney, who at the same time was the administrator of Terracota, a company in whose founding Alejandro Márquez Rodríguez, a close friend of Adán Augusto López, participated. Simulating competition. The simulation of competition has been a recurring practice in this network of companies, as evidenced by documents from a series of contracting procedures consulted by MCCI. For example, in a procedure on May 16, 2024, for cleaning the Grijalva and Espino rivers, the National Water Commission (Conagua) received offers from three interlinked companies: Construcción, Rehabilitación y Conservación de Obras de México; Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco (a company included by the SAT in its definitive list of billing firms), and Proyectos, Obras y Suministros del Sureste. The first two bidders reported having their address in a building on Calle Tres, number 214, colonia Reforma, in the center of Villahermosa. On his LinkedIn account, Carlos Suárez Alor reports being an administrative assistant at Rager de Tabasco, a company created over 20 years ago by the Bermúdez Requena brothers; at the same time, this employee has served as the legal representative of Construagregados Hopelchén, another company that the Tax Administration Service (SAT) also placed on its definitive list of billing firms and that coincidentally was also a contractor when Adán Augusto was governor of Tabasco. An investigation by Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) documented that this type of practice is repeated in dozens of Tabasco companies that have used the identities of workers, office employees, and social program beneficiaries to register them as supposed shareholders, partners, or representatives, when in reality they function as fronts for the true owners. This practice allowed the articulation of a business network that simulated competition to monopolize contracts. The company has obtained contracts and subsidies for more than 4 million pesos in the Morena governments of Tabasco and Chiapas. Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco was constituted in 2018 by the shareholders Wendy Karyme Hernández de la Cruz and Miguel Ángel Muñoz Boettiger before notary 7 of Tabasco, associated with that of Adán Augusto López. The contract established a maximum amount of 24 million 845 thousand pesos, a figure that constitutes the financial ceiling agreed upon between the agency and the company for that service. During the fiscal audit of the Public Account 2022, the ASF determined that Tenda did not prove to have an immediate response capacity, nor the necessary technical, financial, and operational resources, nor a track record in providing grain logistics services. The company was officially declared by the SAT as an operation simulator, better known as a 'phantom' or billing company. Miguel Ángel Boettiger, one of the partners of the phantom company, has declared in official documents to work as a driver and on his social networks appears to perform logistics tasks at popular dances. Until the closing and publication of this investigation, there was no response. The legal representative of Tenda provided the ASF with a private contract whereby the company subcontracted 100% of the services to Comercializadora Columbia, including the mobilization and delivery of the corn. Right on that floor is the tax domicile of Mar & Mel del Sureste, a company whose sole shareholder and administrator is a woman who earns a living selling nutritional products from Omnilife and cosmetics from the Seytú brand. The deposit slips showed that Tenda did not execute the service directly but acted as an intermediary. To these irregularities was added the lack of essential documentation, such as mobilization orders, deposit certificates endorsed in favor of Segalmex, and settlement papers. The company argued that the contract was in a conciliation process, but the ASF concluded that the information presented did not prove the correct execution of the contract nor did it remedy the supplier's lack of capacity. Despite these findings, Segalmex contracted the same company again. The review of its legal documentation and banking operations showed movements associated with the commercialization of laboratory supplies and medical material, not activities related to the object of the contract celebrated with Segalmex, in violation of the requirements established in the acquisitions law. At the time of receiving the contract, Tenda had only six workers registered with the IMSS, a minimal staff compared to the volume, territorial coverage, and logistics required by the services contracted by Segalmex. By: Valeria Durán / MCCI. Miguel Ángel is a worker from Villahermosa who supports his family by alternating his job as a driver with logistics support tasks at popular dances. In a different procedure, whose ruling was issued on July 25, 2023, the agency awarded Tenda the supply of three thousand tons of black beans for 88 million 300 thousand pesos. Methodological note. For this investigation, MCCI managed, processed, and analyzed for four months more than 4,100 documents, among which there were 1,067 invoices, 1,980 contracts, 400 award procedures, and 350 commercial records, in addition to presenting 315 access to information requests with state and federal agencies. That contrast was not considered by the agency at the time of awarding the contract. Sanction applied by the ASF for irregularities detected in a contract to Tenda. The audit also revealed that the contract functioned under an intermediation scheme.
