Part III: The Private Empire of Tamaulipas Governor García Cabeza de Vaca

"Redlogarythm" for Borderland Beat

For Part I of this series, please click this hyperlink.

For Part II of this series, please click this hyperlink.

Francisco Javier García Cabeza de Vaca

This is the last chapter of the investigative series of Tamaulipas governor Francisco Javier Garcia Cabeza de Vaca. In this two-month long investigation, Borderland Beat gathered data from the US and Mexican government, public registries, newspapers, and protected witness testimonies. We also included our own analysis and conclusions with the data provided.

Ideally, we would have liked to offer this last chapter earlier, before the downfall of Cabeza de Vaca and his administration. Nevertheless, since this week, the Governor of Tamaulipas is officially an outlaw and the US has finally provided the Mexican government with intel about the Governor's money laundering network, a big, variated and profusely multi-faceted financial operation that has been running non-stop at least since 2004.

This final chapter is about Cabeza de Vaca's money laundering network and the individuals working within it. We sincerely hope to bring some light into one of Mexico's biggest and most recent scandals.

The Mayor of Reynosa (2004–2006): Public Contracts, Real State and the Creation of a Family Emporium

Cabeza de Vaca won the mayorship of Reynosa on November 2004. We have already covered in detail the events surrounding that elections that brought Cabeza de Vaca to a real position of power for the first time in his life. From the alleged funding of his campaign by the Gulf Cartel to the killing of his public security chief hours after his nomination.

The truth is that by January 2005 Cabeza de Vaca was the mayor of one of Tamaulipas' most important cities. Located in the northeastern Mexico, Reynosa has always been a vital point in the constant flow of goods and people in the US-Mexico border. For obvious reasons, it has always been a very important smuggling center which impersonates Mexico's main dilemma: drugs coming out and money with weapons coming in.

Criminal organizations have traditionally coveted border plazas such as Reynosa because of the relative easiness with which one can smuggle assets through its borders. From Tijuana on the west to Matamoros on the east, going through Nogales, Ciudad Juárez, Piedras Negras, Ciudad Acuña, and Nuevo Laredo.

Every Mexican border town has witnessed the same tragedy: a never-ending conflict for the monopoly over customs in order to control de flow of goods (legal and illegal). And in the process, the alliance with the municipal governments and custom authorities is almost a mandatory step.

There is no doubt that Cabeza de Vaca favored drug trafficking and illegal smuggling operations through Reynosa. The Gulf Cartel had funded his campaign with at least half a million dollars and the he had to pay back his debt.

We will never know how the tacit alliance between Cabeza de Vaca and the Reynosa-based faction of the Gulf Cartel worked, but a good example is what happened on August 12, 2009. That day, following a police investigation, a man called Alfredo Leal Guerra was detained in San Juan (Texas) while driving a black Ford Expedition in which authorities found 25.2 kilos of cocaine wrapped in 22 packages.

Alfredo Leal Guerra had been one of the main Municipal Police commanders in Reynosa during Cabeza de Vaca's mayorship. He had been First Commander, then Operative Director of the Policía Preventiva Municipal of Reynosa, Head of the Public Security secretary and even Chief of Security of the Municipal Water and Sewage Commission. He was also rumored to have been a member of the personal security of Cabeza de Vaca himself, but he immediately came out to deny this fact stating that Alfredo Leal Guerra had not been a member of his personal security and that he had occupied security positions in previous administrations as well.

The mayor of Reynosa blamed former Governor of Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernández Flores, for charging him with inexistent ties with the former police officer.

Whatever the truth was, it was unquestionable that Cabeza de Vaca had appointed Alfredo Leal Guerra as head of Reynosa's Municipal Police as well as to other top positions within the municipal government. The following photograph shows Cabeza de Vaca chatting in a friendly manner with the man he claimed he was not linked to.

Despite the suspicious links with the Gulf Cartel, the most interesting event regarding Cabeza de Vaca's  tenure as Reynosa mayor has always been the formidable scheme of public corruption that he and his cronies built around the contracts awarded by the municipality, which were granted to a relatively diversified network of companies owned by several friends and relatives.

One of the main leaders of this underground scheme was Cabeza de Vaca's brother, José Manuel. Once a humble entrepreneur, after the arrival of his brother to Reynosa's townhall, José Manuel suddenly unveiled himself as a prosperous builder, receiving dozens of contracts from the Reynosa government.

On February 16, 1999, José Manuel and an associate called Salvador Hernández Garza constituted a construction firm called Sierra Gorda Construcciones SA de CV in the Public Notary N. 259 of Reynosa.

This company would receive 9 contracts for a total of 14,975,891 million pesos between 2002 and 2006, most of them from Reynosa's municipal government. It is worth mentioning that the company was created five years before the arrival of Cabeza de Vaca's to the townhall, which might indicate an initial truly legitimate business project by José Manuel. But the fact that more than half of all the contracts (8,117,468 pesos) were awarded in 2006, during Cabeza de Vaca's tenure, suggests that the scheme was in the works since then.

The most probable thing is that the Cabeza de Vaca clan conceived their criminal project on the brink of his triumphal entrance to the Municipal Government in January 2005. In fact, just three weeks before the November 2004 municipal elections, on October 10, José Manuel's business partner Salvador Hernández Garza constituted a company called Sierra Leona SA de CV.

The corporate capital firm was divided between three associates: the already mentioned Salvador Hernández Garza, Daniela González Montes de Oca, and Zacnité González Montes de Oca. Interestingly enough, Zacnité herself would be nominated on April 17, 2017 as Director of the Global Climate Education and Vigilance Center "Casa de la Tierra", one of the several administrative "ghost" institutions created by Cabeza de Vaca's state government in order to appoint the vast network of cronies that the clan used to sack Tamaulipas.

The link between Sierra Leona SA de CV and the Cabeza de Vaca clan is confirmed by the fact that the Corporate Commissary (a legal position in charge of internal controls demanded by Mexico's General Law of Mercantile Companies, Article 164) of Sierra Leona is the same one of Sierra Gorda SA de CV and of Grupo Inmobiliario Cava SA de CV, one of the clan's main companies: Edith Lerma Ochoa.

Borderland Beat has been able to establish that between 2006 and 2016, Sierra Leona SA de CV received a total of 49 public contracts for a total value of 59,347,296 MXP. Nevertheless they are not all of them.

We know that Sierra Leona was awarded at least 4 contracts in 2005, the first of them in April, 3 months after the arrival of Cabeza de Vaca to the townhall. They were contracts for the building of general infrastructure (paving mainly) for a total value of 7,138,343.56 MXP. Interestingly enough there is virtually no trace of these four first contracts (SEDUE-REY-MUNI-021-05-IR; SEDUE-REY-MUNI-002-05-IR; SEDUE-REY-FORT-071-05-IR and SEDUE-REY-FORT-084-05-LP). Reynosa's transparency portal has been recently renovated and the current data available dates back only to 2019.

During the three years of Cabeza de Vaca's tenure (2005-2007) his Government granted nearly 300 million pesos in the form of public contracts. The beneficiaries were a bunch  of companies and individuals linked one way or another to the mayor.

One of them was a Reynosa-based businessman called Roberto Guerrero Cavazos, relative of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) Governor Manuel Cavazos Lerma, who owned among other businesses  La Cantera casino, a place where Cabeza de Vaca held public rallies and which he used for his Governor campaign in 2016.

Roberto Guerrero Cavazos is an old associate of Tamaulipas governor Cabeza de Vaca

Roberto Guerrero Cavazos owns a construction company called Construcciones y Mantenimientos Roca SA de CV through which he was granted one of the biggest contract issued by Cabeza de Vaca's administration; the building of an elevated bridge over the Monterrey-Matamoros highway in the Lomas Real de Jarachina Norther and Southern Colonies.

Borderland Beat has consulted Mexico's public contracts official database, COMPRANET, and obtained access to the folder of the contract number 57057002-003-07, awarded on February 15, 2007, to Construcciones y Mantenimientos Roca SA de CV for a total of 43,512,325.74 MXP.

A year earlier the company had obtained a contract for building an overpass in the intersection between the Reynosa-Matamoros highway and the Miguel Angel Avenue. Under the code 57057002-020-06 it amounted for 33,999,997.66 MXP.

In total Borderland Beat has been able to establish that between 2005 and 2017, Construcciones y Mantenimientos Roca SA de CV received at least 23 contracts for a total of 400.87 million pesos. Of the 23 of them at least 16 were awarded by the Tamaulipas State Government: 4 by the Communications and Transport Secretariat, 7 by the Public Works Secretariat and 5 by Reynosa´s townhall Urban Development and Ecology Secretariat.

Interestingly enough, Construcciones y Mantenimientos Roca SA de CV was one of the companies and individuals linked to Cabeza de Vaca and investigated by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which the Mexican Government publicized on May 20, 2021.

Other companies were also awarded by Cabeza de Vaca's Government. Businesses such as Aqua Soil SA de CV, JF Construcciones SA de CV or Darima SA de CV received millionaire contracts for the building of public infrastructure or the development of studies and projects of constructions that were not even built.

But Cabeza de Vaca's own family was also going to be benefited by the sudden avalanche of public contracts. In the documents, news, articles and rumors that surround the figure of the Governor's family there are two names that although similar represent two separate companies: Desarrolladora Cava SA de CV and Grupo Inmobiliario Cava SA de CV. 

Desarrolladora Cava SA de CV was founded on Agusut 25, 2003 in Reynosa under the scrutiny of Public Notary Horacio Ortiz Renán, who would be employed as Secretary of the local townhall under Cabeza de Vaca's administration and current President of Tamaulipas' Supreme Court. Cabeza de Vaca's brother Ismael would be employed by Desarrolladora Cava as sales manager between 2007 and 2014 according to his own profile published in the Legislative Information System. 

The details about Grupo Inmobiliario Cava SA de CV are more confusing. It was apparently incorporated on September 1, 2005, under the auspices of Public Notary Emma Alicia Treviño Serna, Ortiz Renan's successor at Notary N. 301.

Nevertheless apart from brief mentions to the company, Borderland Beat has not been able to establish the formal existence of Grupo Inmobiliario Cava.

The Cabeza de Vaca clan has formed several other firms during the years. One of the first companies was Productos Chamoyada SA de CV, created at some point in the 1990s in which both Ismael and Cabeza de Vaca held official positions.

There are also at least two companies created by the Cabeza de Vaca clan in the 2000s in which Ismael held the position of General Director: Consorcio Aduanero Cava SA de CV and Comercializadora Civsa. Borderland Beat was not able to find further information about such businesses. 

The fact that the clan was able to profit from the arrival of Cabeza de Vaca to the mayorship is confirmed by a conversation between Cabeza de Vaca's brother José Manuel and an architect identified only as Carlos Valenzuela.

It was made public in June 2006, in the middle of the would-be Governor's tenure, by several newspapers which received it anonymously. Borderland Beat has been able to obtain the original transcript of the conversation, what follows is the translation of such dialogue.

José Manuel (henceforward JM): Hello?

Carlos Valenzuela (henceforward CV): Hey man, I didn't even remember how your voice sounded

JM: Yeah, look, I told myself "this one is hiding from me, do I owe him something or what?"

CV: No, you don't owe me nothing

JM: Did you see me a bad face or what?

CV: No, no bad face at all, I tried to locate you by every possible way, but anyway, I knew about you through Pepe [nickname for Jose] ... I knew that you were busy, you are on the business...

JM: No man, I'm really on it now

CV: But is it OK?

JM: Very good

CV: And then Eduardo del Real told me that he had been there with you all

JM: He came over here, Eduardo, and he said "Hey, I'm without a job" and I told him "Let me see what can be done ... how can it be accommodated"

CV: And did you hire him?

JM: He's working for the COMAPA now

CV: Yes

JM: In the water one, here in Reynosa. He told me "I'm really fucked up" and I told him "Cabrón, whatever I can help you with..." And he told me "with a job". I told him "let me see" and I told [Cabeza de Vaca], my brother, "Hey man, do you remember Eduardo" "Yes how couldn't I..." "Isn't there any job for him?" He told me: "I think he's very good, isn't he?"  "I don't know, cabrón, but he must be for Carlos having him there"

CV: Yes, he somehow told me he was there

JM: And then I told him, and he remained there working for the COMAPA. Who knows how he feels

CV: And he is there in Reynosa

JM: Yes, he is here in Reynosa

CV: And he comes on weekends to his house?

JM: I suppose, but not very single weekend. He can't all the weekends and I see him here. I have seen him during the last 2 months, 3 times I've seen him. He is staying at a suite right now, and last week I met him at a restaurant. He was with some people and we sat to chat. He asked me if I could get him a house, I told him "we have some houses from those we built there". I think [Cabeza de Vaca] took some of them. I told him "look, I'll rent one for you, man". He said "órale cabrón, just let me take a look how they are" (...) We must bring here a lot of project, Carlos, bring land between us...

CV: You and me need must have a lunch, to talk about what you are preparing

JM: I've been with the thing of going to Mexico...

CV: When do you come?

JM: I've backed down like ten times, chingao

CV: But why?

JM: Because of the arguments (...), look, believe me if I say I can't break away. The only time I have a break is when Francisco [Cabeza de Vaca] isn't here, in the city.

CV: Look, take a day. Come here and return.

JM: I must go!

CV: Yes, let me say you something. We take advantage to let you see them and then we eat the three of us. We began two big projects with Pepe. Two projects of 2,400 houses each, one in Morelia and one in Cuernavaca and we are beginning another front of 2,000 houses in Acapulco. We are already constituted as a fund and somehow, I don't want to talk about this on the phone, I want to talk to you to show you the magnitude of what I´m doing.

JM: Of course

CV: We are almost a little bank … take for this next year, José Manuel, a record, but I could take like 27 million dollars

JM: Excellent

CV: Now, I think we must talk about business in a real way

JM: Excellent, we just bought ... We associate and purchase 200 hectares, and I'm right now in the authorization of those 200 hectares and they have everything, if God wants, prepared by this month and the intention is ... eh, we are going to start by selling batches right? ... for capitalization need. Put the numbers you want, 200 hectares...

CV: It's a lot of money. How much for the square meter?

JM: I think we're going to sell it...

CV: For how much did you buy it?

JM: Eh ... seven. And I think we're going to get ... now I'm calculating to sell maybe 60 by 12, to capitalize, pay debts and to begin to use the land as back up right? To begin selling the credits and everything and start working with that. And it was too much land, but it was everything or nothing right?

CV: Yes, but besides you have a reserve to entertain yourself for a long time. If you can handle the city towards it...

JM: It´s already there, you have to handle nothing. You have everything right there. I need you to see it and give me your personal opinion

CV: Well, it´s a matter of you telling me what you have in mind, what do you want to do, if you have a plan of being around here. I think it would be worth listening to the whole story of what´s going on with us. And on the other hand we are totally ready to see what we can do in a bigger scale, right?

JM: That´s good. We can do one thing. Bring me the opportunity to relief myself . Next week I´m busy, but the next one I think I´m going to have the opportunity. The thing is that I´ve to see the incoming week. Take into account that every day I´m busy as fuck and I know I won´t be able to leave the city. But the next one I´m free and I want to program...

CV: Then select a day right now

JM: Yes...

CV: That´s fine. It´s so good to hear you. I think that I have been somehow waiting for the right moment for doing something. Hopefully it´s coming. Let´s have that talk. Come here someday and tell me when do you want me to take a walk so we both see things. And about what we get you already know that the offices finally agreed and it seems that somehow we solved that issue

JM: Yes, in fact here I was being briefed by the accountant. He told me "it has been solved, here I bring the last check signed, of the last pending one, we´ll deposit it right now"

CV: And to write a severance, to have it there in your archive

JM: The promissory notes, they haven´t returned them right?

CV: Ah! I have those, I´ll return them to you personally

JM: Okay, perfect

CV: But I´ll send you a written severance on which we accept that somehow the issue has been liquidated and that we´ll only exchange the documents personally not to send them through mail. And I think your accountant was evaluating if you wanted to invoice this or not

JM: Look, there´s a situation he´s presenting me. Well, it isn´t him, in fact it the external accounting. What they are telling me is that it´s those interests that appeared, they appear here in the accounting

CV: It´s a cost for you

JM: Or like a utility. Then they say to me "There´s no need of it being an invoice, with the VAT just a tax receipt that hasn´t to incorporate VAT"

CV: I can´t give you any receipts. We don´t have tax receipts, only invoices

JM: An invoice without VAT now that you´re telling me that it´s an invoice, because sometimes I issue invoices without VAT

CV: Really?

JM: In some cases...

CV: Why don't you let me analyze and consult it?

JM: Basically it is proof that the expense existed

CV: Ok

JM: Because the VAT...

CV: I´ll speak to our legal consultants, I´ll ask them how we can handle it

JM: Tell them about the VAT because it would break me in ten parts

CV: Yes, because it´s becoming and additions expense for you

JM: Furthermore, remember that the houses don´t recognize the VAT. Then it would hit me form everywhere, right?

CV: Okay, Then look, I´ll take next homework. For underlying, you send me the little severance that is left, I send you the written severance. Then I exchange the promissory notes with you, here, there or when we see each other. And I´ll check the thing about the tax voucher for you. For not generating any VAT, and I´ll consult it with my advisors. And I hope to hear from you to see when you can get a day and we can see each other around here

JM: Fine, man

CV: Okay, hey, kind regards and a hug for your brother

JM: The same, I send you my regards

CV: See you

What can we infer from such conversation? Firstly that it is a very good proof of how businesses are done among corrupt politicians not only in Mexico but in Latin America entirely. When this conversation was made public in 2006, the Mexican media covered more or less extensively who José Manuel was. Nevertheless the public eye focused in the brother of the mayor of Reynosa, not in who the people he was talking with were.

Borderland Beat has been able to establish the identities of Eduardo del Real that the Cabeza de Vaca clan appointed to the Potable Water Municipal Commission (COMAPA) as well as the man José Manuel is talking with, Carlos Valenzuela.

Eduardo del Real is in fact Eduardo del Real Soria, an individual that was appointed as Financial Manager of Reynosa's COMAPA. This is the individual that by recommendation of José Manuel was appointed directly by Cabeza de Vaca.

After the mayor's tenure ended in late 2007, Eduardo del Real would follow Cabeza de Vaca through several positions. In 2010 he was appointed as Sub-Director of Finance of the Commision for the Regulation of Land Ownership (CORETT) when Cabeza de Vaca was awarded with its direction by the Felipe Calderón administration in recognition of his support during the unstable 2006 federal elections.

He would also be nominated later to the Sub-Secretary of Administration of the Education Secreatriat of Tamaulipas in 2016 and in November 2017 was finally appointed as Coordinator of Commisioner of the Cotrollership. As we can see, the career of a real bureaucrat whose biggest merit has been a privileged contact with the Cabeza de Vaca clan.

Eduardo del Real Soria. Friend of the Cabeza de Vaca brothers, who have appointed him to several posts in the multiple administration of Cabeza de Vaca

The case of Carlos Valenzuela is far more interesting. He is in fact Carlos Valenzuela Valadez, a PRI politician from Matamoros that has held important positions within the party in Tamaulipas.

In 2011, he was appointed as the PRI liaison officer in Reynosa for the 2012 elections that brought Enrique Peña Nieto to power. He has also been a State Deputy for Matamoros' Electoral District N. 11 through which he was able to get elected as State Deputy for the LXI legislature (2011-2013).

He held charges in several vital commisions: Social Development, Water, Communications and Transport, State and Municipal Patrimony, Municipal Affairs, Urban Development and Social Communication.

Carlos Valenzuela Valadez, PRI bureaucrat and business partner of the Cabeza de Vaca clan

The fact that the conversation with José Manuel dates back from 5 years before Valenzuela's role in the State Government does not matter. It reflects very clearly how the Cabeza de Vaca clan maintained a very good relationship with members of a party, the PRI, that supposedly was PAN's biggest enemy. This is not a surprise since we must remember that Cabeza de Vaca's political godfather was Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba (the undisputed leader of Tamaulipas PRI).

The position of Valenzuela as the link between Yarrington and the Cabeza de Vaca clan gets confirmed if take into account that Carlos Valenzuela's brother, Matamoros-based businessman Enrique Valenzuela. Enrique is a stakeholder of a luxury hotel called Peninsula Island Resort & Spa in Texan South Padre Island, Texas, a tourist destination that has turned out to be a favorite investment site for drug traffickers and corrupt Mexican politicians, including both Yarrinton and Cabeza de Vaca.

Enrique is also the owner of several businesses funded by the Valenzuela family at both sides of the border, including Brownsville (where he lives) and Matamoros. For a long time he has been rumored to be a close business associate and friend of Tomás Yarrington himslef. If this is true, the link between his brother Carlos and the Cabeza de Clan would come to confirm Borderland Beat's point of view: Cabeza de Vaca has always been linked and allied to a wing of the PRI particularly close to the area of influence of Tomás Yarrington.

What are Carlos Valenzuela and José Manuel García talking about? Businesses, obviously. Apart from the huge real estate complexes mentioned by Valenzuela (2,400 houses in Cuernavaca (Morelos); 2,400 in Morelia (Michoacán). and another 2,000  programmed in Acapuclo (Guerrero), we can hear them chatting about a dealing that the Cabeza de Clan is preparing: they had bought 200 of land, probably in Reynosa, for $7,000 per square meter which had been duly requalified.

Their intention was to sell first 60 hectares for $12,000 per square meter to compensate the initial investment. This is what is most interesting about the conversation between Carlos Valenzuela and José Manuel.

We will never know what plot of land they were talking about, but this conversations is a direct proof about that in 2006, in the middle of Cabeza de Vaca's mayorship, his clan was engaged in massive real estate operations.

The exit of Cabeza de Vaca from Reynosa's townhall in December 2007 would not mark the end of the clan's operations. Instead, the former mayor would climb even higher, hplding powerful positions inside the PAN national leadership in Mexico City and profiting from the resilient clientelist networks he and his family had created during the precedng years.

It was time for big business.

The Clan's Empire:

During 2006, Mexico held what probably was its most disputed elections. The story is long and well-known: Andrés Manuel López Obrador (at the time organized under the PRD) was defeated by Felipe Calderón Hinojosa (from the PAN) amid widespread allegations of electoral fraud.

Cabeza de Vaca played a pivotal role in such elections when he was appointed as the PAN's national Coordinator for the network of PAN-affiliated mayors to guarantee a nationwide municipal support for the future President. There is not too much information about Cabeza de Vaca's role in Calderon´s campaigns, but it must have been important because the former President has always been a staunch supporter of the Governor.

The man responsible for heralding Mexico's drug war, Calderon always found enough time amid his busy agenda to support Cabeza de Vaca before, during, and after what seems to be the Governor's demise.

Calderón was side by side with Cabeza de Vaca during the closing of his campaign for the State of Tamaulipas on 2016 and is a lavish author of tweets and articles defending his former campaign coordinator who -- according to his own statements -- is the victim of AMLO´s inquisitorial maneuvers.

Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president of Mexico between 2006 and 2012, and Cabeza de Vaca, one of his most important assets during the 2006 elections

The truth is that after being mayor of Reynosa, Cabeza de Vaca did not have too many troubles to find new jobs. That same year, on 2008, he was appointed as Deputy for the Tamaulipas Congress, where he would be Commissioner of the State PAN bureaucracy. Then in 2011 he was directly appointed as Director of the Commission for the Regulation of Land Ownership (CORETT), an organization created in 1973 and dedicated to defend the public ownership of land as well as the legalization of lands, mediation in land disputes, acquisition of public terrains and the regulating of the use of public plots of lands by their users (ejidatarios).

A perfect metaphor of one of the main Mexican problems: a corrupted politician whose main objective was to concentrate and monopolize public resources (particularly real state and land) appointed to the Directorate of the Federal agency in charge of overseeing the administration of the same resources that he hungered to appropriate.

After that, in 2012, came another of his best hits when he was able to postulate himself as one of the PAN's Tamaulipas candidates for Mexico's legislative chamber, the Senate. In the process he defeated another PAN bureaucrat, Maki Esther Ortíz Domínguez, in an internal electoral process that Maki Esther herself denounced publicly as a fraudulent, accusing Cabeza de Vaca of buying votes. She brought him even to Mexico's Federal Electoral Tribunal which in less than a year rejected twice her allegations.

Cabeza de Vaca won his seat at Mexico's Senate. From there he would be one of the leading figures in the promotion of Mexico's Energy Reform; a macro-legislative project designed by Mexico's economic elites and implemented by Peña Nieto's administration, which counted with the invaluable collaboration of the whole membership of the PAN party.

As we will see, Cabeza de Vaca used his capacity to mediate in the passing of the Energy Reform not only to perceive massive amounts of money in the form of kickbacks paid by international corporations through the PEMEX director Emilio Lozoya, but also designed his own energy projects in his natal Tamaulipas. Projects that he and his crew would duly tax, of course.

During these years of continuous professional ascension, the Cabeza de Vaca clan started creating the true basis of its empire. There had been previous movements such as the creation of companies in Reynosa like Construcciones y Mantenimientos Roca SA de CV, but during 2011, 2012 and 2013 at least a dozen companies were created in several places all across Mexico by direct order of the clan to obtain resources through several ways.

These companies (most of which are still operative) engaged in multiple business areas such as construction, real estate, transport, PMEX-related services, transports, or financial services, and some of them were created as front companies for the sole purpose of engaging into false invoicing, a widespread corporate practice in Mexico which is used for money laundering, fraud and tax evasion. We will mention just some of them for the sake of space.

On June 30, 1997, Baltazar Higinio Reséndez Cantú incorporated Barca de Reynosa SA de CV. A construction company according to its own corporate CV, Barca de Reynosa had traditionally been awarded with contracts linked to the construction, installment and repairment of PEMEX infrastructure. Borderland Beat has been able to establish that the firm has obtained at least 17 contracts for a total of 503.36 million pesos between 2003 and 2016, but there could easily be much more.

On November 12, 2011, a company called Inmobiliaria RC de Tamaulipas was incorporated apparently by Baltazar Higinio Reséndez Cantú, who has always figured as its unique administrator.

Nevertheless, Inmobiliaria RC became famous very recently when in 2020 Mexican media published that the company had been used by the Cabeza de Vaca clan as destination of millionaire sums of public money through two contracts awarded by the State of Tamaulipas.

In fact Baltazar is the brother of Esiquio Reséndez Cantú, who in January 2011 was nominated as head of Reynosa´s COMAPA. As we´ll demonstrate, Baltazar has played a mayor role for the Cabeza de Vaca clan, acting as strawman for several of Cabeza de Vaca's companies.

The first one, awarded on February 27, 2017, consisted in the construction of a two-story complex in the Universidad Tecnológica of Reynosa for a total of 25,261,807.35 MXP (please consult the original granting act here). The second one was awarded on July 3, 2017. It consisted in the building of Reynosa's Women Center of Justice for a total of 23,372,671.34 MXP (please consult the original granting act here).

Original signature by Baltazar Higinio Reséndez Cantú obtained by Borderland Beat showing him as Unique Administrator of Inmobiliaria RC de Tamaulipas SA de CV, which according to the FBI and the Mexican Government is directly owned by the Cabeza de Vaca clan 

These contracts became famous when Santiago Nieto, head of the UIF, mentioned them in an online presentation he gave in March 2021 in the context of the explanation of his agency´s findings about Cabeza de Vaca. According to what he explained.

By January 2021 the works for the construction of the Women Justice Center presented a real advance of just 9.33% of the whole project. The time limit for the contract ended by the first months of 2021 but since Inmobiliaria RC de Tamaulipas SA de CV argued that it would be impossible to comply on time the contract was elevated from 23.3 million to 66 million pesos.

Other mysterious companies linked to the clan are the real estate agency Inmobiliaria Las Asturias Inlas SA de CV, constituted on February 13th 2013, and Comercializadora Bosque Alto. Although separate companies dedicated to very different business areas, Borderland Beat has been able to establish that both companies share in fact the same address: on the México-Toluca Interstate 119 road N. 5631, Cuajimalpa de Morelos municipality, in the State of Mexico.

The location is occupied by a normal housing complex with no traces of corporate activity. Interestingly enough, although Comercializadora Bosque Alto publicizes itself as a steel distributor it appears to be immersed in the business of public contracts.

Borderland Beat has been able to establish that this company has been awarded multiple contracts by the Government of the State of Mexico including one for the providence of food utensils and another (awarded on March 31st, 2020) and another for the providence of hydroalcoholic gel in the frame of an anti-Covid emergency plan enforced by the State Government.

According to the Mexican newspaper Jornada, the State of Mexico hasn´t received the material yet, although according to what Borderland Beat has stablished Comercializadora Bosque Alto imported 5.5 tons of hydroalcoholic gel purchased to the American firm Noa LLC.

Extract of the State of Mexico public contract database showing the contract celebrated with Comercializadora Bosque Alto SA de CV, which according to the FBI is owned by the Cabeza de Vaca clan, for the supply of hydroalcoholic gel in the context of the Covid19 crisis

Copy of the original contract celebrated between Comercializadora Bosque Alto SA de CV and the State of Mexico for the supply of food utensils

Another similar company is Comercializadora Nacional de Proveedores Lexur SA de CV, a transport company that paradoxically won in 2020 a contract of 12.82 million pesos for supplying cleaning materials for Mexico´s Revenue Service (SAT)

 

Two other businesses linked to the clan have been labelled as fraud platforms by the authorities of the State of Baja California.

The PAN Governor of Baja between 2013 and 2019, Francisco "Kiko" Vega de Lamadrid, has been formally accused with several others of his colleagues of being behind a multibillionaire fraud scheme that absorbed at least 1,200 million pesos through fake contracts with at least 90 businesses that never complied with the contracts they were awarded with, 40 of which were mere factureras (a special kind of front business used to issue false invoices in order to rather launder money or evade taxes).

Amid the list of blacklisted companies involved in this massive scheme are two businesses which are linked to the Cabeza de Vaca corporate network according to the FBI: Avalúos y Peritajes del Sur SA de CV and Grupo Tramitador y Asesoría Legal SA de CV (constituted on February 13, 2013)

Another company linked to the Cabeza de Vaca clan and labeled as a facturera is Perforaciones y Remodelaciones Entransito SA de CV, which on October 19th 2019 was officially categorized by the SAT all along with another 118 businesses as such.

Extract of the October 19th 2019 edition of the Federation Official Diary (DOF) blacklisting Perforaciones y Remodelaciones Entransito SA de CV as a facturera

But maybe one of the darkest examples of how diversified Cabeza de Vaca´s business operations were is personified by Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO SA de CV SOFOM ENR.

The terms SOFOM ENR stands for Multiple Object Financial Company-Not Registered Entity, a type of corporate strcuture admited under Mexican law specifically designed to act as source of credit for other businesses. They are like corporate banks wihout a license. In the case of Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO, it has conducted activities in the State of Sinaloa, where it has celebrated multiple public contracts with the State Government. 

Of all them there´s one quite prominent: the supply of three Suburban 4x4 armoured cars to be used for the protection of three special public figures; the Administrative Coordinator of the Government Secretary José Francisco Montoya Robles, Sinaloa´s State Public Prosecutor Marco Antonio Higuera Gómez and the PAN Governor himself Mario López Valdez. This contract was celebrated on June 30th 2011 for a total sum of 9,386,125.62 MXP.

Original contract celebrated between the Sinaloan State Government and Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO SOFOM ENR SA de CV for the supply of three armoured cars for the State Prosecutor, Governor and Administrative Coordinator of the Government Secretary

What had Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO SA de CV, a businesses which according to the FBI is linked to the Cabeza de Vaca clan and supposedly designed to act as a source of credit, to do with the Sinaloan State Government in order to act as a supplier of armoured cars to the elite of the PAN Governorhip? We´ll never know. But again, it´s a link between a PAN Governor and the would-be PAN Governor of Tamaulipas.

We could still dig even more into the clan´s corporate empire, but it would be futile since our thesis has been already demonstrated as a fact. Between 2008 and 2016 the Cabeza de Vaca family created an immense portfolio involved in multiple activities through which they not only committed widespread fraud, but also earned public funds through the allocation of contracts within the States of Tamaulipas, Sinaloa and Mexico (at least)

Despite all this evidence, most of the public opinion remained silent until the inevitable happened and the Mexican Government announced that they had evidence against Cabeza de Vaca and his family.

But this announcement would be accompanied by an incredible revelation: the apparent relationship between the Governor and the Sinaloa Cartel.

Cabeza de Vaca and the Sinaloa cartel: an indirect relationship

The relationship between Cabeza de Vaca and the Sinaloa Cartel seems to be the consequence of using a professional money launderer who has worked for multiple parties since the last century.

His name: Manuel Rodolfo Trillo Hernández aka El Trillo or La Trilladora. El Trillo was a close associate of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, for whom he had been a pilot in the 1990s, when he owned a landing strip located in Atlixco, in the State of Puebla.

El Trillo apparently was one of the coordinators of El Chapo´s famous escape from the Jalisco-based Puente Grade Maximum Security Prison in 2001. His brother Miguel Ángel was accused of hiding the Sinaloan boss in several of his properties located in Puebla´s exclusive residential zones of El Mirador and Las Ánimas right after the escape.

After being detained in San Pedro Cholula (Puebla) on August 19th 2015, El Trillo has been accused by the SEIDO of laundering at least 954 million pesos during a time span of 5 years through 16 bank accounts and using three different fake identities. These fake identities were Juan Helú García, Manuel Garza Espinoza and Ladislao Vázquez López, identified both by the FBI and the UIF as individuals linked to Cabeza de Vaca.

El Trillo was also accused of being one of the organizers of El Chapo´s second scape from El Altiplano maximum security prison through a tunnel that apparently was financed by El Trillo himself.

The only available image of Manuel Rodolfo Trillo Hernández aka El Trillo or La Trilladora, close associate of El Chapo and money launderer for the Sinaloa cartel. Several of his companies funneled money for Cabeza de Vaca

There is no doubt that Cabeza de Vaca had financial and business links with El Trillo, but does this mean that the Governor has had contact with Joaquín Guzmán Loera? That´s one of the main questions that everyone should ask himself/herself.

There have traditionally been rumours about a meeting between Cabeza de Vaca and El Chapo which might have been confirmed by an internal memorandum of the US Tamaulipas-based consul Tobin Bradley in which he assures that in February 2012 the back then member of the Senate held a series of meeting with the Federal Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna in the city of Cabo San Lucas, Baja California.

According to the same document the DEA reported that one of those days the presence of Joaquín Guzmán Loera was confirmed in Cabo San Lucas and that everything indicated that the three figures had met considering the closeness between Genaro García Luna and El Chapo.

Copy of the internal memorandum written by Tamaulipas-based US consul Tobin Bradley considering the possibility of a meeting between El Chapo and Cabeza de Vaca 

Although the media have treated this document as a direct proof of the links between Cabeza de Vaca and El Chapo we should not forget that the memorandum does not talk about a meeting that truely happened, but rather as a possibility that might have taken place.

In other words, there is no confirmation about such an issue, only a certain degree of possibility that it really happened.

Nevertheless, what is unquestionable is the relationship that Cabeza de Vaca and El Trillo had through a certain number of companies which were used to funnel funds that the Governor used for buying several assets (mainly real estate)

What do we know about these businesses? Despite the absence of official information provided by Mexican authorities, which have confirmed that the financial operations took place but without revealing the names of the businesses nor the identities of the beneficiaries, Borderland Beat has conducted an extensive investigation regarding these operations and has discovered the probable real names of the corporate instruments involved.

Most of the following conclussions have been obtanied through the analysis of data and intel info provided by the head of the UIF, Dr. Santiago Nieto, in an extensive public conference which we highly recommend.

The base of the links with the Sinaloa cartel-affiliated money launderer is the purchase of an apartment in the district of Santa Fe, in the municipality of Cuajimalpa de Morelos (Mexico City).

According to Mexico´s UIF the resources used by Cabeza de Vaca to purchase such apartment experienced a long journey through several corporate structures affiliated to the Sinaloa Cartel.

The apartment costed 14.3 million pesos which Francisco received from a company identified as a SOFOM. Borderland Beat believes that this company could very easily be Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO SA de CV SOFOM ENR (the same one that received contracts from the State of Sinaloa).

Cabeza de Vaca received these 14.3 million pesos in the form of a loan on December 18th, 2013 (while he was a Senator in Mexico City) directly from the SOFOM and would pay back most of the loan (13.5 million) on November 8th 2016. The SOFOM, in turn, had received them one day earlier, on December 17th, in the form of two separate electronic transfers from two different companies.

The first company transferred 8.3 million and the second one 6 million. Which were these two companies? The UIF didn´t revealed it, but Borderland Beat believes they are two businesses called Flunky SA de CV and Marbole SA de CV, which were very probably incorporated together on 2012 and sanctioned by the UIF in 2014 on the gounds of money laundering charges.

Both businesses have been linked to the Cabeza de Vaca clan by the FBI. Borderland Beat has confirmed that the SEIDO blocked several accounts that both firms had in several banks including BBVA Bancomer, Santander and at least what seems to be a money exchange business.

Extract of the Federation Official Diary (DOF) formalizing the blocking of the bank accounts held by, among other coampines controlled by El Trillo, Flunky SA de CV and Marbole SA de CV, used by Cabeza de Vaca to buy an apartment in 2013

Both companies were part of a network of seven companies (formed also by Flutnex SA de CV, Cuarzo Blanco y Asociados SA de CV, Zocle Mercantil SA de CV, Comercializadora Piter SA de CV and Nacer Peninsular del Sureste SA de CV) used by the Sinaloa cartel to launder at least 3,500 million pesos for both the Mexican organization and the Norte del Valle Cartel of Colombia.

At least one of both companies, Flunky or Marbole, was linked to the shooting down of a Mexican plane by the Venezuelan armed forces in the Alto Pure State on November 4th, 2013.

The plane, a Monterrey register Hawker Siddeley DH-125-400A with register number XB-MGM, was loading a cocaine haul of the Sinaloa cartel, according to Santiago Nieto himself.

According to the UIF both Flunky and Marbole exchanged 33.9 and 42.6 million pesos in a series of 54 payments between March and October 2013. Furthermore, both companies were linked to another 4 companies from which they received 3.7; 3.09 and  2.5 millions and 875.000 pesos on March 2014. These four companies were probably some of the ones we mentioned before as part of the Sinaloa Cartel laundering mechanism. 

According to Mexico´s UIF, the 6 companies (Marbole, Flunky and the other 4) were operated by Manuel Rodolfo Trillo Hernández aka El Trillo himself, El Chapo´s money launderer. He was the one authorizing the lending of 14.3 million pesos to the company controlled by Cabeza de Vaca, Impulsos y Desarrollos GBO SOFOM SA de CV, which he used for purchasing the apartment at Santa Fe de Cuajimalpa which, surprisingly, he included as his own property in his last Asset Declaration on December 21, 2016.

Extract of Cabeza de Vaca's 2016 Asset Declaration in which he reflects the acquisition of an apartment in Santa fe for 14,300,000 MXP through a loan. It has turned out that the money for the purchase came from businesses controlled by a Sinaloa cartel-affiliated money launderer

This has been the main link between Cabeza de Vaca and the Sinaloa Cartel: he has used the services of a money launderer affiliated to the Sinaloa cartel for purchasing an asset. Does this mean that Cabeza de Vaca has ties to the Sinaloa criminal group? Not necessarily.

In the words of Dr. Santiago Nieto, head of the UIF, this doesn´t mean that the Sinaloa cartel is related to [Cabeza de Vaca]. What it means is that the companies which he used and the ones with which he has made financial transactions, both businesses that ended up sending money to the SOFOM, are businesses that have been used by organized crime.

Overall scheme of the corporate structure used by Cabeza de Vaca for purchasing an apartment in Mexico City. Borderland Beat hasn´t been able to discover which was the exact link between Flunky and Marbole with the SOFOM, so the links might be the opposite

Nevertheless there are other links between Cabeza de Vaca and El Trillo. For example, Borderland Beat has confirmed through the analysis of the info provided by the UIF that Avalúos y Peritajes del Sur SA de CV, one of the companies linked by the FBI to the clan´s corporate empire and used in the massive fraud against the Government of Baja California, share the same corporate adress with one of the 6 companies owned by El Trillo, which would suggest that the company was in fact owned by El Trillo rather than by the Cabeza de Vaca clan. 

In 2019 Avalúos y Peritajes del Sur SA de CV received 46.3 million pesos from those same 6 companies linked to the Sinaloa cartel and on December 2019 it transferred 44.8 million pesos to an undisclosed company which in turned funneled 42.1 millions to Cabeza de Vaca himself.

As we can see, the relationship between the Governor of Tamaulipas and the Sinaloa cartel seems to be indirect rather than an alliance for the providance of impunity of coverture, which doesn´t mean that such maneouvres didn´t exist. It´s just that there are no proofs about such a pact.

Cabeza de Vaca and the energy reform: a long term investment strategy

In 2013, after a long legislative process, the Administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto modified the Constitution of the United States of Mexico on the grounds of Article 135.

Among the many changes introduced into the Constitution the most important one was the modificacion of article 27 which basically said that Mexico´s natural resources were owned by the nation entirely and that its use would solely be done by the Government itself. Article 27 had been introduced by president Lázaro Cárdenas in an incredible move when in 1938 his administration natinalized the oil industry completely.

Although later PRI Government had relaxed the strong nationalistic and socialist component of article 27 they had never changed the core of this principle: Mexico´s natural resources ar unalienable. Nevertheless Enrique Peña Nieto´s adminsitration introduced a constitutional reform that destroyed completely article 27´s frame.

Under the excuse of economic restructuration, a better shaping of Mexico´s public institutions and a better allocation of natural resources, Peña Nieto and his cronies modified one of the pillars of the nation´s sovereignty which from the very beginning counted with the total opposition of a certain sector of the Mexican leftist political spectrum, with AMLO as a prominent leader.

The story of Mexico´s 2013 energy reform is complex, long and should be analyzed in the context of Latin America´s evolution of neo-liberalism agendas during the 2010s. It had not been planned by Peña Nieto´s administration but by a complex alliance of national and foreign cliques of financial, industrial and political elites which saw in Mexico´s inmense energy potential an enormous benefit that required only to levy an old and outdated legislative protective barrier.

In a few years, when the story of Mexico´s 2013 energy reform is analyzed it whould be said that the modification of the 1917 Constitution was made possible thanks to the willing of the PRI and PAN leadership and to the tons of money paid in the form of kickbacks to the legislators by foreign companies to acquire the required legislative quorum.

Cabeza de Vaca played a mayor role in the passing of the Energy Reform. As member of the Energy Commision of the Senate he was one of the few privileged Mexican politicians to participate in the building of the projects that were later subjected to voting.

Cabeza de Vaca will be remembered for his defense of a Mexican energy model, a model that would combine the exploitation of Mexico´s huge gas and petrol resources with the utilization of non-conventional sources of clean energy such as windpower energy.

As time has demonstrated, Cabeza de Vaca's support for alternative energies wasn´t linked to his support for clean sources of electricity, but for an already proven capacity to obtain private profit. Today, we can assure that Cabeza de Vaca profited from the Energy Reform in two ways. Firstly through the reception of money in the form of kickbacks paid by international business conglomerates through the director of PEMEX, Emilio Lozoya.

Secondly, through the development of contacts with an Spanish energy corporation, Acciona, with which he developed an enourmous project for the development of windpower parks in his natal Reynosa, which were awarded through rigged contracts to, among other, a company owned by him through an already known strawman, Baltazar Higinia Reséndez Cantú.

Regarding the first issue, as Emilio Lozoya has declared in a very long statement he gave to the FGR on August 2020, the back then director of PEMEX was used by Peña Nieto´s administration as messenger boy for delivering hundreds of millions of dollars to several figures of Mexico´s political elite.

Among them he assures that Senator Cabeza de Vaca received an undetermined amount of money, in cash, on August 2014 all along 4 other Senators and one Congressman.

Extract of Lozoya´s statement were he tells how he gave cash to 6 Mexican legislators among whom was Cabeza de Vaca himself

The second issue is far more interesting since Borderland Beat has been able to obtain much more data about an operation involving an international energy corporation, a corrupted Tamaulipas Governor and several Mexican individuals/businesses.

After arriving to Tamaulipas´ Governorship in 2016 Cabeza de Vaca was in an excellent position as a man of reference for those companies trying to profit from the Energy Reform passed in 2013.

Tamaulipas is located in a privileged location which combines the presence of massive resources of natural gas, shale gas and petroleum as well as a series of authorities willing to grant any license under the condition of being allowed to profit from the honey pot.

One of such companies was Acciona. Born originally in 1862 in Galicia, Spain, as a railroad company, the back then company known as MZOV evolved during the XXth century into a gigantic consortium focused on multiple activities such as financial businesses, real estate, transport or urban development among which the exploitation of natural resources is probably one of its most famous areas of activity.

All along with other energy companies, Acciona was one of the main parties interested in the success of Mexico´s energy reform. Undoubtedly, in the murky, long and unstable process of lobbying that these companies undertook in the salons and corridors of Mexico City´s administrative buildings, Acciona must have met with Cabeza de Vaca.

In 2016 Acciona made public that it had obtained the first public contract offered in light of the Energy Reform for the building and management of a wind farm near Reynosa, Tamaulipas, known as El Cortijo.

The facilities, built between March 2017 and September 2018, costed 235 million USD. El Cortijo wind farm comprises 61 AW 135/3000 type wind turbines with a power of 183 megawatts, producing 585.7 gigawatts/hr and providing electricity to at least 458,000 households (for a better understanding of the enormous scope of the project take a look into Acciona´s original proposition)

Undoubtedly, the project of El Cortijo wind farm was conceived either by Cabeza de Vaca himself or by someone close to him. It was a long term business project if we have to believe the information offered by the very same company he constituted for partnering with Acciona to develop the wind farm: Desarrollos Renovables Enerxiza SA de CV.

According to its own corporate webpage it all started when Enerxiza started monitoring the tendencies of the wind in 2004 in partnership with the Universidad Autónoma de Tamaulipas. 7 years later, in 2011, Enerxiza started talking with the landwoners and in 2016 it partnered with Acciona to run for the El Cortijo project which had always been the goal of Enerxiza and, by extension, of Cabeza de Vaca

Who was behind Desarrollos Renovables Enerxiza SA de CV? A man we already know very well: Baltazar Higinio Reséndez Cantú, the same strawman used by the Cabeza de Vaca clan to hide his ownership of, among others, Inmobiliaria RC de Tamaulipas SA de CV or Barca de Reynosa SA de CV.

As Santiago Nieto pointed out Cabeza de Vaca, who owned Enerxiza through Baltazar Higinio Reséndez Cantú, took advantage of his privileged contacts with the private energy sector to partner with Acciona and get the awarding of Mexico´s first contract for the building of an entirely private wind farm.

Nevertheless, El Cortijo was probably the tip of the iceberg since at least the early 2010s the Cabeza de Vaca clan started buying enormous surfaces of land in the form of ranches most of which were acquire by a series of businesses linked to the family of Cabeza de Vaca whose ultimate objective was to buy the land where future wind farms would be stablished. This is in our opinion Cabeza de Vaca's biggest bid, and he has always been very interested in promoting windpower energy in Tamaulipas.

Scheme organized by Cabeza de Vaca in partnership with Acciona to create El Cortijo wind farm, possibly the biggest of the clan´s investments

During the last two months Borderland Beat has been investigating dozens of companies, businesses and individuals linked to the Cabeza de Vaca clan.

We have tried to cover most of the Governor´s businesses although we have left some untouched (like the acquisition of ranches or the businesses conducted by other clan members) for the sake of simplicity and space. It hasn´t been easy and has consumed a lot of our time and efforts that we could have dedicated to other issues.

Nevertheless, we think it has been worth it. Today, by the end of May, Cabeza de Vaca is a fugitive of the Mexican Government. With his Mexican assets frozen by the UIF and most of the public opinion demanding his capture, the Governor is hiding somewhere watching how the empire he and his family built through more than two decades of greed, rapine and theft is being torn apart forever. Time will tell if he can survive this legal offensive, we hope he doesn´t.

Before ending these last investigative report about Cabeza de Vaca we would like to invite the reader to take into consideration that the case of Cabeza de Vaca is no exception but the rule. The wicked logic of Mexican politics, in which the electoral campaigns are negotiated with rival political groups and founded with assets belonging to criminal organizations, helps to create candidates and governors that behave as Viceroys, acting as the supreme authorities within the limits of their states. 

As long as Mexico -and by extension all Latin America- is able to reform its political system in a way that prevents the creation of power monopolies it will be only a matter of time before another Governor, it doesn´t matter if from Baja California, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, Sonora, Nayarit or Veracruz, is uncovered doing the same thing.

As Acciona´s, Cabeza de Vaca´s biggest business partner, corporate motto says:

It's business as usual.