Shell Companies Linked to Adán Augusto Lopez Awarded Billions in Public Contracts Across Mexico

Mexico City, Mexico — A sprawling network of shell companies, some using low-wage workers and social program beneficiaries as fronts, secured over 2.36 billion pesos in public contracts across six Mexican states and federal agencies, an investigation reveals. The network has ties to Senator Adán Augusto Lopez, a former governor and close ally of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The investigation by the watchdog group Mexicanos contra la Corrupción y la Impunidad (MCCI) found the network involved at least 20 companies. It originated in Tabasco during Lopez’s tenure as governor and later expanded to the states of Campeche, Chiapas, Hidalgo, Puebla, and Quintana Roo, as well as federal agencies including the National Water Commission (Conagua) and Segalmex, the state food supply agency at the center of the administration’s largest corruption scandal.

The scheme relied on “straw men”—individuals with no real control over the companies they nominally owned or managed. One example is Miguel Ángel, a driver and event logistics worker from Villahermosa, Tabasco, who is listed as a shareholder of Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco, a company officially designated by the tax authority (SAT) as a “ghost” or shell company. That firm operated from a commercial plaza owned by the Bermúdez Requena family and won contracts during Lopez’s governorship.

Another, Carlos Suárez Alor, lists himself on LinkedIn as an administrative assistant at Rager de Tabasco, a company founded by the Bermúdez Requena brothers. He also served as the legal representative for Construagregados Hopelchén, another SAT-listed shell company that was a contractor under Governor Lopez.

Key figures in the network include Alejandro Márquez Rodríguez, a Tabasco businessman nicknamed “El Ganso” and described as a close friend of Adán Augusto Lopez. Márquez has served as a partner, administrator, or legal representative for several beneficiary companies and accompanied Lopez on his 2024 presidential primary campaign tour for the Morena party.

MCCI sent a questionnaire to Lopez’s Senate contact email seeking comment but received no response before publication. Lopez announced he would step down as Morena’s Senate leader the Sunday before this report was published.

The investigation uncovered multiple layers of connections:

• Several companies were registered at Notary Public No. 7 in Villahermosa, which shares an address with Notary Public No. 27, where Adán Augusto Lopez is the titular notary.
• Multiple shell companies and contractors reported their business address as the same building at Calle Tres 214 in Villahermosa’s Reforma neighborhood.
• Companies shared legal representatives and reported addresses at a shopping plaza owned by the Bermúdez Requena family. Hernán Bermúdez Requena served as Lopez’s security secretary in Tabasco and is currently imprisoned, accused of leading the “La Barredora” criminal organization.
• The network engaged in simulated competition, with multiple linked companies bidding on the same public tenders.

One notable case involves Grupo Comercial e Industrial Tenda, which shared an address and legal representative with the shell company Comercio y Construcción de Tabasco. Despite lacking experience, infrastructure, or operational capacity for grain supply and logistics, Tenda received two contracts from Segalmex in 2022 and 2023 worth 113 million pesos to supply corn and beans.

A federal audit found Tenda had only six employees registered with the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) at the time and appeared to act merely as an intermediary, subcontracting 100% of the services. The audit concluded the company did not demonstrate the capacity to fulfill the contracts, yet Segalmex awarded it another multi-million peso contract the following year.

The total value of contracts awarded to companies in this network exceeds 2.36 billion pesos.