Mexico issues arrest warrant for ex-Pemex CEO

Mexican authorities have raided the home of a close aide of former President Enrique Pena Nieto and secured the arrest of one of the country’s best-known businessmen in a drive to get justice for scandals that tainted the last government.

The former chief executive of Mexican national oil company Pemex focused on enriching himself though acts of corruption which led to massive losses for the firm, the head the finance ministry's financial intelligence unit said on Tuesday.

Lozoya, one of former President Enrique Pena Nieto's closest aides, is at the heart of the first high-profile graft probe launched by the government of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who won election by a landslide last year promising to root out public sector corruption.

Lozoya's lawyer, Javier Coello Trejo, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Lozoya has previously denied any wrongdoing in the case.

The finance ministry on Monday said it had blocked Lozoya's bank accounts for allegedly carrying out "illegal" operations.

The allegations center on Pemex Fertilizers, a subsidiary of the firm created during Pena Nieto's term, which purchased two fertilizer plants in 2013 and 2016.

The attorney general’s office said it had issued warrants for several people in relation to the case, which the country’s anti-laundering tsar said centered on bribes paid in connection with the $475 million purchase by Pemex of a fertilizer plant from Ancira’s company Altos Hornos de Mexico. The tsar said the case had links also to Brazilian builder Odebrecht, whose executives have testified about bribes to politicians across Latin America.

Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent to revive ProAgro, the plant was still not operating this year, according to a scathing government audit of the 2017 operations of Pemex, Mexico's biggest state-owned firm.

The second plant, Fertinal, operated well below capacity, and Pemex Fertilizers suffered net losses of $665 million that year, according to the report. Meanwhile its assets were worth $1.1 billion less over the course of the year, the report said.

Lozoya has defended the purchases as part of the government's efforts to provide support to agriculture in Mexico.

Last week, the Public Administration Ministry announced that it had sanctioned two senior Pemex executives from the Pena Nieto administration, without identifying the executives.

One of the executives was Lozoya, according to the people with knowledge of the matter, who was barred from holding public office for 10 years but was not fined.