Hernández Casillas brothers electoral procurement network, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico City): Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said an investigation carried out by the Secretariat of Anticorruption and Good Government, using open sources, found that the business group run by the Hernández Casillas brothers is part of an electoral procurement collusion network that began 27 years ago. She said the network consolidated during the tenure of Lorenzo Córdova at the National Electoral Institute (INE) and is linked to the SOMOS political party.
Sheinbaum said the priority is for the matter to be investigated and for the acquisition of electoral packaging to be made transparent. She questioned who sets contracting guidelines and why electoral contracts had ended up with the same individuals since 1989, arguing that these contractors grew stronger during the period of the INE’s General Council presided over by Córdova.
She also said Córdova had acknowledged in recent interviews that contracts were awarded through state electoral bodies.
Sheinbaum stated that the founder of the Hernández Casillas companies is a member of SOMOS, and said that no one defends any illegal act that may have been committed. She said the Federal Superior Audit Office and the Attorney General’s Office should examine the matter, including anyone who participated in the INE’s structure.
She said the practices did not begin under Guadalupe Taddei, who was appointed INE president in 2023.
Sheinbaum also announced that a decree would be presented next week to strengthen Talleres Gráficos, a state printing company, by adding more secretariats, academic institutions and, as an observer, the Federal Superior Audit Office to its board, so that electoral materials are manufactured in this state enterprise while other items are purchased from Mexican companies.
Raquel Buenrostro Sánchez, Secretary of Anticorruption and Good Government, said the investigation found that electoral contracting has been linked to the Hernández Casillas brothers for 27 years, and that understanding current events at the INE requires looking back to the 1980s. According to her account, between 1983 and 1988 the brothers worked at the National Population and Personal Identification Registry (RENAPO) of the Secretariat of the Interior, where José Alfredo Hernández Casillas served as private secretary to Juan Carlos Padilla Aguilar, the agency’s director general.
Buenrostro Sánchez said Raymundo Hernández Casillas worked in financial and materials resources in 1987, and that the company Cartonera Plástica was established in 1988. In 1989, Padilla Aguilar became general secretary of the CISEN intelligence agency and brought José Alfredo with him as private secretary, while Raymundo joined the investigations area that year.
She said that in 1992 the company Formas Finas Fernando Fernández was formed and linked to Raymundo Francisco Hernández Casillas. In 1999, Cartonera Plástica, linked to José Alfredo Hernández Casillas, participated as an electoral supplier in the State of Mexico.
In 2005 it obtained a contract worth 63.7 million pesos from the State of Mexico Electoral Institute to supply electoral materials, a year in which irregularities and alleged bribery were reported, leading to the resignation of seven electoral councilors.
Buenrostro Sánchez said that between 2012 and 2013 the brothers diversified companies and contracts with local electoral bodies in states including Jalisco, Tabasco, Guerrero, Quintana Roo, Zacatecas and Hidalgo. After the 2014 electoral reform shifted the appointment of local electoral councilors from state congresses to the INE’s General Council, she said 23 of 32 local electoral bodies awarded contracts totaling 2,094 million pesos to the brothers between 2015 and 2023.
Between 2024 and 2025, she said, the same network obtained contracts worth 646.3 million pesos with 15 of the 32 local bodies.
Buenrostro Sánchez also said Padilla Aguilar, after working at CISEN, held several posts in the State of Mexico and that, four decades later, he shares the SOMOS party with former INE officials, including Marco Antonio Baños, alternate party representative before the INE; Edmundo Jacobo Molina, former executive secretary and now head of the party’s political training center; and Lorenzo Córdova, a member of SOMOS’s citizen advisory council.
Buenrostro Sánchez explained that the INE is an autonomous body overseen by its internal comptroller and Congress, so the Federal Superior Audit Office must identify irregularities and pursue administrative sanctions, and complaints may be filed with the Attorney General’s Office (FGR) or the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF). Her secretariat is also studying mechanisms to prevent similar schemes in the federal public administration.
