The Pandora Papers uncover new properties of Romero Deschamps family

Por Andrea Cárdenas / Quinto Elemento Lab

The son of the former union and ex -legislator leader, Carlos Romero Deschamps, managed his participation in an offshore company in British Virgin Islands and presented to the office that made the procedures a list of properties of him and his family that includes residences other than those that theThey are already being investigated by the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU).

In March 2009, when he was 38 years old, Alejandro Romero Durán became an owner of the firm Steller Overseas Holdings Inc, created to buy properties, collection cars, yachts, antiques and jewels, in accordance with the records contained in thePandora Papers, a 11 filtration.9 million financial documents obtained by the International Consortium of Research Journalists (ICIJ).

The company was created since 2001 with a capital of 50 thousand dollars, and the identity of the original owners is unknown as they controlled the company through the wearer shares that guarantee anonymity.Alejandro Romero officially linked to the firm eight years later and in 2012 he asked the office Trust Trust Company LTD put all the actions in his name.

Steller Overseas is a paper company: he has no employees, physical offices or economic activity.When he became the owner of the firm, Alejandro Romero listed the offshore assets ten properties on Mexican land: two apartments and a penthouse in Mexico City, four residences in the metropolitan area of the capital but located within the statefrom Mexico, a luxury condominium in the hotel zone of Cancun, a house in Guanajuato and another in Hidalgo.

The department in Cancun and a property in Edomex have already been mentioned in the investigation that opened the FIU in 2019, when he filed a complaint against Romero Deschamps and his family for irregular financial operations.The offshore and the eight additional properties are not included in the investigation of the financial authorities.

Romero Deschamps, 77, is a politician of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and former trade union of Petroleos de México (Pemex) with a long history of scandals and questions about the origin of his fortune.He and his family face two investigations from the Attorney General's Office (FGR) and the FIU for illicit enrichment and operations with resources of illegal origin.

The family of the former oil leader allegedly made between 2006 and 2017 suspicious operations of sale of properties to “disperse assets that most likely come from non -lawful activities”, according to the complaint of the FIU to which fifth element Lab had access.

Alejandro Romero, who claims to be a merchant, is investigated with his father for his alleged participation in a resource triangulation scheme that includes facade companies and millionaire transfers."It was corroborated that they carried out operations within the National Financial System that could not be based on commercial activities or lawshide its origin and destiny ".

The FGR did not attend the interview requests that were sent to know about the course of the inquiries;The head of the FIU, Santiago Nieto, also did not respond to requests for comments.

The properties

Of the ten directions that Alejandro Romero listed in his offshore, a residence on Río Espondidand José Carlos.The Mayor is José Carlos, who is currently 52, Alejandro with 50 and Paulina are followed with 39.

The condominium in Cancun, meanwhile, also appeared in the sights of the FIU as a property acquired in 2006 by Alejandro and José Carlos.This is an apartment in the residential condominium of the sea, a few steps from the hotel zone.The residence belonged to his aunt María Guadalupe Lidia Durán Limas, who bought it in 1993.

The brothers bought the property of more than a thousand square meters in about 3.9 million pesos and has six bedrooms, a bar and two terraces with pool and jacuzzi, according to the file obtained from the Cancun Property.

At least four of the real estate listed in the offshore are in the name of Alejandro Romero, according to the property records consulted by the fifth element Lab, Univision, the country and process.It was not possible to review the background of the rest of the residences because the records of Hidalgo and the State of Mexico did not deliver the requested information.

From the data collected, it was known that at 22 the son of Romero Deschamps was made of his first property of 950 square meters in the El Campestre subdivision, of Salamanca, Guanajuato, where his father began his career in Pemex.According to the background of the property, in 1993 a former employee of the parastatal sold the land to Alejandro Romero Durán in 85 thousand pesos.

In Mexico City there are properties in Polanco, Anzures and Narvarte.In 2007 he bought a 6 Penthouse.4 million pesos in three peaks 86, an exclusive condominium in the heart of Polanco that has private security access, party hall, pool, jacuzzi, gym and large gardens, where the rent of an apartment is quoted even in more thanfour thousand dollars a month.

That same year, Romero Durán acquired another two million pesos department on the fourth floor of the building nestled on Dante 12 street, according to the files of the Property Registry.

The six -departments building on Anaxágoras 733 street reported by Romero Durán to the Trident Trust Office as another of its assets, has a value of 20.4 million pesos, but in the registration of the CDMX the son of Romero Deschamps does not appear as owner, but the firm the firm Alcar SA de CV is owned.

The Heritage

The documents leaked in the Pandora Papers do not mention the amount that Alejandro Romero invested through his offshore, but at the time of giving custody of his actions to the Trident office, he declared that the origin of the funds come from resources “received from his grandfatherPaterno 26 years ago ”, when he was 12 years old.

He also said that the funds that Steller Overseas would receive would come from the reinvestment of the profits obtained from the sale of real estate, collection cars, vessels, antiques and jewels.

The biographers and close to Romero Deschamps' family, however, have registered their humble origin."Carlos Romero was born and grew in an equally precarious area: a colony of sailors and oil workers such as his father, the peasant and jalisco railroad José Romero García," said journalist Ana Lilia Pérez, in her book Pemex Rip.

"He was from a poor family, they were not wealthy," recalls Octavian.His father "was not any distinguished person.The man was a worker where he could ... They lived in a neighborhood, there were no luxurious houses, ”says the oil retiree.

Over the years Romero Deschamps became one of the most powerful and questioned union leaders in recent history.He entered Pemex in the late sixties and since 1993 he directed with total opacity the reins of the oil union until October 2019.The PRI took him to San Lázaro as a federal deputy and also occupied a senaduría in the upper house twice.

During his years in the Union and as a politicand luxury cars conducted by José Carlos.

“The Romero Deschamps family are subjects that are characterized by having a life of luxuries, which are not consistent with their tax and commercial profiles manifested before the authorities, so the origin of the resources with which they haveacquired the various real estate ”, includes the complaint opened by the FIU.The researchers found that from 2006 to 2017, they acquired 12 properties with a value of 159 million pesos.

Since Andrés Manuel López Obrador arrived at the Presidency, in December 2018, Mexican prosecutors have opened 12 inquiries against the former union leader without until now they have managed to take none of the cases to court.Nine of the investigations were filed, one accumulated and only two continue in process, according to information provided via transparency by the FGR.

The archived investigations investigated an extensive list of crimes: peculation, illicit enrichment, fraud, influence peddling, usurpation of functions, harmful operations to third -party assets and illicit remuneration.

The offshore company discovered in the Pandora Papers was not until now consigned in the authorities of the authorities.To set up this firm and keep its identity hidden, Alejandro Romero hired the services of Aramo Trust Co.Limited, as a registration agent in the Virgin Islands;Trident Trust, as a custodian of the wearer actions, and the Panamanian firm Castro Bertido, in charge of making the offshore payments and procedures.

The filtration of the Pandora Papers contains dozens of emails sent through the offices that handle the offshore, accompanied by legal agreements, forms, trades, invoices, statements and certificates of actions, but the documents do not allow to know with certainty how much the knew theDESCANCES OF ALEJANDRO ROMERO OPERATIONS.

The offices declined to comment on the particular activities of Romero's offshore."Trident does not talk about her clients with the media," he replied to a letter sent for this research.

The offices he hired were obliged to review their background, but in the Pandora Papers archives there are no reports of “due diligence” nor there are indications that it was classified as “politically exposed person” (PEP), a category for whomHe is related to a position of public responsibility, such as his father's, for which he had to be subject to a thorough investigation.

Discreet entrepreneur

Unlike his brothers Paulina and José Carlos, who have boasted a life of luxuries and excesses, Alejandro remains away from the reflectors, reluctant to be photographed in public and publicize details of his private life.The attempts to contact him to interview him did not give results.

In the case of Alejandro Romero, the tax authorities identify him as a shareholder of five multi -turn companies that offer from air taxi services to the treatment of wastewater and purified water and ice trade, which had operations for more than 413 million pesosBetween 2013 and 2017.

In Mexico, it set up in 2016 Aeromonky Service Center that offered private taxes and jets services, but the company was dissolved in 2019 and appears denounced by the FIU for presenting an irregular financial behavior. Alejandro Romero también aparece en la denuncia con participación en firmas como Odis Asversa, Pame R&B Asociados, y Three Star Corporation.

In addition, the unionist's son registered two companies in Houston in 2013, Monkyyair LLC and Threepolarbears LLC, in which he associated with his wife Jacqueline Abarca Cantoral and with the aviator pilot Alejandro Parada Cantú, according to the Texas records consulted by fifth element Lab.In 2017, Alejandro Romero and his Mother Blanca Rosa Durán Limas created Cablalepa Stars LLC, although their operations are practically unknown.

The financial intelligence body found that in four years Alejandro Romero entered the national financial system at least 77.6 million pesos without certainty of origin and destination.This figure contrasts with the 4.6 million that reported in its fiscal statements from 2014 to 2017, which translates “in a fiscal omission by the person referred to”, according to the authorities.

The financial operations of their brothers are also in the sights of the FIU.Paulina Romero bought her father for 15 million pesos in 2015 and received checks for 21.8 million Romero Deschamps, between 2011 and 2015.José Carlos acquired an apartment in Miami of 5 in 2006.5 million dollars and the authorities review their business activities in Cancun.

For IIF researchers it is "irregular that the children of a subject linked to a Mexican parastatal and its union, appear with corporate participation in multiple commercial entities," says the complaint of facts against Romero Deschamps family.“It is not ruled out that their participation in these companies is only with the purpose of having one more element that allows them to introduce resources to the national financial system, which apparently do not have a lawful origin and thus hide their origin and final destination".

The groups that have been dissident and critical against Romero Deschamps have seen in the Lopezobradorista government an opportunity to clarify the complaints about the fortune of the former union leader and his performance for decades at the head of the guild, although the slowness of the investigations has generated doubts even amongThe supporters of the so -called Fourth Transformation.

"I don't know why nothing could have been done against those people (...) If I do not listen to us I will be the first disappointed in this because I belong to the 4T, it may be that we have the solution at home and do not do it", lamented the senator for Morena, Cecilia Sánchez, who urged the Prosecutor to turn arrest orders against the PRI politician.

Zorayda Gallegos (El País), Mathieu Tourliere (Process), Peniley Ramírez and Claudia Ocaraza (Univisión) collaborated in the preparation of this report.

Llustrations: Carlos Álvarez

This report is part of the special Pandora Papers, an investigation led by the International Consortium of Research Journalists (ICIJ), in which we participate more than 600 journalists from 150 media around the world.