An investigation by Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) revealed this Wednesday more links between a businessman related to the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador and his eldest son, José Ramón López Beltrán, criticized for leading a luxurious life in United States.
Grupo Vidanta, a tourism consortium founded by Daniel Chávez, a businessman, friend and adviser to the president, received in 2020 the extension by 15 years of a concession to occupy a beach, as well as a permit to build a cable car over the river Ameca, which will connect two mega tourism projects in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit, indicated the MCCI investigation.
This concession and the permit they received were “granted the same year that López’s son Obrador obtained a visa to work in the United States through the management and invitation of KEI Partners“, the text pointed out.
KEI Partners, the investigation continued, is a real estate company founded in Houston by the sons of the founder of Vidanta, “who have also had shareholdings in companies of that tourism consortium.”
In addition, in June of the same year, Chávez was appointed by López Obrador as his representative in the supervision of the section of the Mayan Train that crosses the Riviera Maya, where Vidanta also has a group of hotels “that will benefit from the railway work”.
KEI Partners was founded in October 2018 in Houston, two months before López Obrador became president.
Concession with extension and cable car
As highlighted by MCCI, the original concession had been granted in 2005, during the Government of Vicente Fox (372-2006), and expired in May 2020.
The extension authorized by Rodrigo Hernández Aguilar, director of the Federal Maritime Terrestrial Zone, will allow Vidanta to use the beach until the year 2035, although in previous years the title of concession.
In addition, the companies RGL Arrendadora de Inmuebles SA de CV and Desarrollo Marina Vallarta, which are part of the Vidanta mega hotel consortium, are in charge of the construction of the cable car that will serve as a means of communication between two hotel complexes located in Bahía de Banderas, Nayarit, and Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco.
In this context, and despite the fact that there was still no “technical opinion” from the municipalities near the work , the environmental impact report (MIA) necessary for the cable car work was approved .
The scandal of José Ramón López
“In 2022, year in which José Ramón López Beltrán began working for the sons of the founder of Vidanta, that tourist consortium obtained at least 35 federal permits or concessions”, highlighted the NGO, highly critical of the current government, and indicated that other permits were also granted in Los Cabos, another tourist area in Mexico.
The scandal has surrounded López Obrador’s eldest son for two weeks when MCCI and the media outlet Latinus, run by journalist Carlos Loret de Mola, revealed that the president’s son lived at 2019 in Houston, Texas, in the house of a Baker Hughes executive, who that year extended a Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) contract.
Both López Obrador and Pemex denied any link between the state company and the son. “Not even with any company linked to the Government, the matter is not a conflict of interest,” assured the president.
But, precisely the response of López Beltrán, who identified himself as a “private citizen,” He unleashed another scandal by revealing that he worked as a lawyer for KEI Partners, the office of Daniel Chávez’s children.
It is also not clear if the firstborn has a valid license to work as a lawyer in the state of Texas, while it has been discovered that the KEI Partners website was hastily made from photos pulled from Google.
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