page_title: Enrique Peña Nieto
section_title: Emilio Lozoya´s trial for Odebrecht illegal 2012 presidential campaign funds and other allegations of corruption
hierarchical_section_title: Enrique Peña Nieto / Presidency (2012–2018) / Controversies / Emilio Lozoya´s trial for Odebrecht illegal 2012 presidential campaign funds and other allegations of corruption
caption_attribution_description: Reunión con Claudia Pavlovich, Gobernadora Electa de Sonora. Residencia Oficial de los Pinos, Ciudad de México. 14 de agosto de 2015.
context_page_description: Enrique Peña Nieto OMRI GCB, commonly referred to by his initials EPN, is a Mexican politician who served as the 57th President of Mexico from 1 December 2012, to 30 November 2018. A member of the PRI, he previously served as Governor of the State of Mexico from 2005 to 2011, local deputy from 2003 to 2004, and Secretary of Administration from 2000 to 2002.
  Born in Atlacomulco and raised in Toluca, Peña Nieto attended Panamerican University, graduating with a B.A. in legal studies. After attaining a M.B.A. from ITESM, he began his political career by joining the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1984. After serving as a public notary in Mexico City, he began an ascension through local political ranks in the late 1990s, culminating in his 2005 campaign for Governor of the State of Mexico. As governor, he pledged to deliver 608 compromisos to his constituency to varying levels of success. His tenure was marked by low-to-moderate approval of his handling of a rising murder rate and various public health issues. He launched his 2012 presidential campaign on a platform of economic competitiveness and open government.
context_section_description: The New York Times published an article of December 2017, describing accusations towards Peña Nieto's government blocking its own investigations against corruption in the Mexican government, with a commissioner saying the Mexican government preventing the establishment of an impartial leader in the FEPADE in charge of investigating political corruption. Previously mentioned 22 ex-governors all members of the PRI political party are investigated for corruption with only five jailed.
  By March 2018 in the dawn of the next presidential election, the PGR made official an investigation regarding PAN's candidate Ricardo Anaya laundering money. Ex-chief of FEPADE (the Mexican government's branch focused on political crimes), Santiago Nieto, whom the previous October had been controversially removed from his job as chief of FEPADE, coincidentally right after starting an investigation regarding illicit campaign money from the 2012 presidential campaign, received by Peña Nieto and would be president of Pemex, Emilio Lozoya from the Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht. The ex-chief of FEPADE, said that the accusations towards Anaya were minor in comparison to Odebretch and Peña Nieto scandal, adding also the same opinion about the money lost by SEDESOL, to corrupt governors from the PRI such as Javier Duarte and César Duarte Jáquez (both whom were later arrested), all while PRI's presidential candidate Jose Antonio Meade was the man in charge of SEDESOL (the scandal is known as "La Estafa Maestra (The Master Robbery)" and about $435 million pesos were lost). 
  The same week the PRI legislators were criticized for voting towards stopping the investigation of Odebretch against the wishes of Mexican people and organizations against corruption such as "Mexicanos contra la corrupcion (Mexicans against Corruption)". The investigation about Odebretch against Pemex leader at the time Lozoya, was legally stopped after, a judge controversially ordered it days after. Santiago Nieto said that the PGR was being used as tool by Peña Nieto's government to tamper elections and benefit Meade by removing Anaya from the race, complaining that it was not neutral the manner in whom the law enforcing organizations had made more effort to investigate Anaya in a month than towards investigating Peña Nieto's Odebretch money and Meade's SEDESOL lost money in the last six years. Going as far as saying the PGR and FEPADE were only attacking the rivals of the PRI, and saying the organizations were not being neutral.
  In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Santiago Nieto would later reveal that Peña Nieto's government tried to bribe him to keep him silent, which he refused saying "Sorry, but I can't receive any money from Peña Nieto.", he received menaces through phone messages with the words "Death follows you" and "Words of advice: stay out of Trouble", as a consequence he revealed to fear for the life of himself and his family.
  Brazilian conglomerate Odebrecht, accused of corruption and bribes throughout Latin America, is currently under investigation for allegedly overriding the Peña Nieto's presidential campaign with illegal campaign funds. In exchange oe the campaign money supposedly Peña Nieto gave Odebrecht contracts through state-owned Pemex. An Odebrecht employee told a Brazilian court that he had been asked to pay a bribe to Emilio Lozoya Austin, then head of Pemex. 
  By 2020, Emilio Lozoya had been captured by the Mexican government, on his trial statements, he testified against Enrique Peña Nieto (whose presidency had ended in 2018), and Luis Videgaray (the former Miister of Finance during that government). He detailed, that following their orders, he acted as the middle-man between Peña Nieto and Odebretch, stating that Peña Nieto's presidential campaign benefited from illegal campaign funds provided by Odebretch, in exchange for future favors. According to the triangulation investigations that proved Lozoya guilty, he received $10 million from Odebretch. Which during his trial, Lozoya described as a payment for facilitating the exchange as a midd
caption: Claudia Pavlovich with Enrique Peña Nieto, August 2015, after being elected governor.
exif: {}