Mexico INE shell companies investigation Sheinbaum, Digi Mart USA News (Mexico): Anti-corruption secretary Raquel Sánchez Buenrostro said that a business network led by brothers José Alfredo and Raymundo Hernández Casillas had operated for 27 years within Mexico’s National Electoral Institute (INE) using shell companies that simulated competition.
Speaking at the morning press conference of President Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo at the National Palace, Sánchez Buenrostro said officials reviewed the origins of the companies and found the oldest information dates back 27 years and is linked to the Hernández Casillas brothers. She said the brothers began working in 1983 at the National Population Registry of the Interior Ministry under Juan Carlos Padilla Aguilar.
According to the official, José Alfredo Hernández Casillas served as private secretary to Padilla Aguilar until 1989, when Padilla was working at the Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen), while Raymundo Hernández Casillas joined the investigations area. She said the brothers later became businessmen and began forming companies after Padilla moved to the State of Mexico as public works secretary.
Sánchez Buenrostro said the brothers began bidding for public electoral supply contracts in the State of Mexico in 1999 through a company called “Cartonera Plástica.” She also recalled a 2005 scandal in the State of Mexico involving a contract with the brothers, which led to the resignation of seven electoral councillors.
The official further alleged that between 2014 and 2023 the INE’s General Council awarded contracts worth more than 2 billion pesos from 23 local electoral bodies (OPLEs) to the Hernández Casillas brothers as electoral suppliers. She said the main beneficiary companies included “Formas Finas y Materiales,” “Cajas Graf,” “Seriplast de México,” “Corporativo ZEG,” and “Formas Finas Fernando Fernández,” which she described as shell companies.
Sánchez Buenrostro said the firms simulate competition, have links between suppliers and public officials, and involve a revolving door. She added that the companies do not declare employees or technical capacity, and many share the same address and telephone number, calling them “ghost companies.”
President Sheinbaum described the network of companies linked to the Hernández Casillas brothers, which obtained multimillion-peso contracts from electoral bodies for years, as a “cochinero” and an “electoral mafia.” She said the alleged irregularities did not begin with the arrival of Guadalupe Taddei as INE president and have roots going back several decades.
The president questioned why the allegations have focused on Taddei and her membership in the Morena party, noting that the network dates to 1989 and was strengthened between 2014 and 2023, during the General Council led by Lorenzo Córdova. She said no one has yet established that an illegal act was committed and that the matter should be reviewed by the Superior Audit Office.
