Ex-Governor Tied to 300M Peso Ghost Flight Scandal

CHETUMAL — A new financial scandal is shaking the Mexican political sphere. The former governor of Quintana Roo, Carlos Joaquín González, currently Mexico's ambassador to Canada, is at the center of a storm following the revelation of an alleged corruption scheme through which he purportedly diverted more than 300 million pesos in public funds during the final years of his administration, according to an investigation by the digital news site TVO.

The epicenter of the scheme is the company Arrendamiento y Transporte Turístico S.A. de C.V., which, according to the investigation, was used as a vehicle to invoice exorbitant sums exceeding 20 million pesos annually for air transportation services month after month. Throughout Joaquín González's term (2016-2022), the invoices paid to this company amount to a scandalous figure surpassing 300 million pesos, funds allegedly extracted from the public coffers of Quintana Roo. This amount even exceeds the already excessive expenditures of his predecessor, Roberto Borge, whose government allocated around 20 million pesos per month to the rental of private jets.

What is most concerning is the manner in which these payments were justified. The invoices, supposedly backed by flight logs, present alarming irregularities. According to sources close to the investigation, all the logs for 2022 show identical routes and schedules month after month. Even more suspicious, each one reports a fixed and unvarying amount of 2,030,000 pesos. This carbon-copy pattern in the records raises serious doubts about the legitimacy of the services and points to a possible false invoicing scheme designed to conceal the diversion of funds.

This is not the first sign of irregularity in these contracts. The State Superior Audit Office detected, as early as 2017, a lack of justificatory documentation evidencing the actual provision of services invoiced by Arrendamiento y Transporte Turístico S.A. de C.V., such as flight itineraries or official commission orders. In other words, payments were made for flights even then without proper verification of their completion. These findings suggest a systematic modus operandi of multi-million peso payments without real substantiation, fitting the "ghost flights" scheme now being reported.

The cloned logs directly implicate two key figures from the former Joaquín administration: Yohanet Torres Muñoz, former local deputy and former head of the Secretariat of Finance and Planning (SEFIPLAN), and Manuel Alamilla Ceballos, former Chief Administrative Officer of the state administration. Both former officials would have been aware, by virtue of their positions, of these allegedly contracted air transportation services.

It is worth recalling that Torres Muñoz was a central figure in managing state finances during Joaquín's term, a period in which the true magnitude of the public debt was concealed, and a historical debt of over 7.3 billion pesos was left to providers, contractors, and institutions. For his part, Alamilla Ceballos has also been under scrutiny. During his tenure, the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer granted multiple opaque contracts, including over 6.3 million pesos paid to individuals for alleged services of "management and support in the Governor's audiences" without clarity or effective verification of such work. These antecedents reinforce suspicions of complicity or, at best, grave negligence by those tasked with overseeing the correct use of public funds.

Other equally suspicious contracts for alleged fund diversions have been reported, revealing exorbitant figures that reinforce the corruption network of the Carlos Joaquín administration. Between 2017 and 2019, SEFIPLAN allocated 142 million pesos to RP Servicios y Capital Humano S.A. de C.V., a company created in 2015 with no prior experience, under the argument of managing ISR (Income Tax) refunds. It should be underscored that this procedure is one the federal government carries out free of charge and without the need for intermediaries.

The firm charged 10.8 million pesos in 2017, 77.6 million in 2018, and 53.6 million in 2019, for a disproportionate total. Yohanet Torres Muñoz, then head of SEFIPLAN, signed the contracts along with other local officials. The situation fits the pattern: companies with no track record, questionable intangible services, and opaque disbursements that only feed organized theft from the state.

The data presented in the TVO report not only exposes an embezzlement of over 300 million pesos from state coffers but also points to a brazen corruption scheme. The evidence is overwhelming: fraudulent invoices were issued, public resources belonging to citizens were plundered, and those who were supposed to protect the state's patrimony failed in their duty. This is not a minor case of misappropriation; it is large-scale theft perpetrated against every resident of Quintana Roo.

The first action to correct this grievance is clear and urgent: state deputies must reopen the public accounts from the Carlos Joaquín administration. Failure to do so would perpetuate an unacceptable complicity with those responsible. A thorough review of those accounts—including every suspicious contract and invoice—is not negotiable; it is the first step to unraveling the modus operandi of this plunder and bringing the guilty to justice.

For now, the State Secretariat of the Comptroller's Office has indicated it will investigate former collaborators close to the previous government, although Governor Mara Lezama has stated she has no knowledge (so far) of formal complaints against the former governor.

This is just the beginning of a wide-ranging journalistic investigation scrutinizing the use of public resources during the past administration. The Quintana Roo Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, which in 2022 left 80% of citizen complaints for corruption filed away without exercising criminal action, now has sufficient elements to act immediately.

Public expectation is that this time there will be no impunity, that responsibilities will be assigned, the perpetrators of this raid on the treasury will be punished, and a strong precedent will be set against corruption in the state. The coming weeks will be decisive in determining whether the authorities respond to the gravity of these revelations or if, on the contrary, a complicit silence prevails, allowing this financial scandal to be forgotten.