Emilio Lozoya Austin, former director of Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) in the Government of Enrique Peña Nieto became the first high-level Mexican official to step on jail for the case on Wednesday Odebrecht.

Born into a family close to power, his father was Secretary of State, federal official and friend of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, Lozoya Austin was, in turn, a member of the first circle of former President Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018) and a fundamental piece of the plot of alleged bribes of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in Mexico.

The former director of Pemex from 2012 to 2016 was arrested in Malaga, Spain, on February 13, 2020 after months of being a fugitive, accused of receiving bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in Peña Nieto’s presidential campaign and participating in the sale irregular plant of Agronitrogenized fertilizers.

Odebrecht would have paid that millionaire figure to  Lozoya  so that in the future the Peña Nieto government would win a tender valued at 115 million dollars to remodel a refinery.

“A member of a new generation of Mexican politicians, a new group called“ Los Golden Boys ”, Lozoya personifies the corruption of the past government. Either with the concessions with which he favored the Spanish company OHL, for accepting bribes from the construction company Odebrecht, during his time as coordinator of International Affairs for the Peña Nieto campaign, or for using these resources to carry out the promised structural reforms at that time, the brand of the former director of Pemex led to the debacle of that ‘new PRI’ ”, he writes in his book  From the Golden Boys to examples of rot: the story of Lozoya, El Traidor , the journalist Mario Maldonado.

Emilio Lozoya has a degree in Economics from the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM) and in Law from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). In addition, he has a master’s degree in International Development from Harvard University.

In Peña Nieto’s campaign, Lozoya was the coordinator of the International Linkage and it was in this position that Odebrecht allegedly gave him about $ 10 million as an electoral contribution, according to testimonies from former executives of the construction company.

Son of Emilio Lozoya Thalman, a government official of Carlos Salinas de Gortari (1988-1994), Lozoya Austin was from 2006 to 2009 chief director for Latin America of the World Economic Forum, which in 2012 recognized him as one of its young leaders worldwide.

Originally from the Mexican state of Chihuahua, Lozoya Austin began to gain international recognition for his research and financial consulting work and for the creation of a successful investment fund.

In 1999 he collaborated at the central Banco de México as analyst responsible for the investment of international reserves in securities; at the IDB with the Inter-American Investment Corporation, a mechanism that promotes the economic development of Latin America and the Caribbean through the private sector.

These credentials, with the link of Luis Videgaray, opened the doors of the first circle of Peña Nieto when he governed the State of Mexico (2005-2011), later accompanied him in the presidential campaign and in part of his Government (2012-2018 ).

The international dimension of the Odebrecht case became known at the end of 2016 when the United States Department of Justice revealed that the construction company had admitted that it paid some 788 million dollars in bribes in 12 countries in Latin America and Africa, including Brazil itself.

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