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2004 in mexico
   
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2005 in mexico
   
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The first video shown on national television was of the Green Party leader ( PVEM ) negotiating a 2 million dollar bribe to give a construction permit in an ecologically protected area. He was taped by one of his own party members, who introduced to him the businessman interested in the project. The three met in the PVEM headquarters. Both sides claimed they weren't serious about the bribe, but were testing each other. This video was quickly forgotten when the PRD videos were shown.


PRD VIDEOS


Most of these videos were taped by entrepreneur Carlos Ahumada , who set up an elaborate hidden camera studio in his offices. He claims he taped the meetings to protect himself from future extortion attempts by PRD members. It was Rosario Robles who introduced Ahumada to her fellow party members. The videos are listed in order of chronological appearance on television.


Gustavo Ponce

In the first, Gustavo Ponce, Lopez Obrador's finance chief, was filmed gambling at the and obtain a guest's bills, and the videotapes seemed to be from the security closed circuit. After some time he expressed his concern Ponce was dead, killed so the truth about the scandal would never come to light. When Ponce was caught hiding in Mexico several months later, he expressed his relief at knowing he was still alive. Some time after his capture, and remembering his conspiracy theory, AMLO presented to the press confidential documents of the United States Treasury Department detailing an ongoing investigation of Ponce for possible financial crimes. These documents, obtained from the Mexican government by Federal District Attorney General Bernardo Bátiz Vázquez , under the pretext they were needed for the probe, showed, in AMLO's eyes, a conspiracy from the federal government against him, since they knew before the scandal something was wrong with Ponce. Both the Mexican and United States government reacted harshly to this violation of the cooperation agreement among the policies of both countries.


René Bejarano

The second scandal came when René Bejarano , previously López Obrador's personal secretary, later elected to the Mexico City legislature, was videotaped accepting USD $45,000 in cash. The video was played on March 3, 2004 at Victor Trujillo 's news program (which he hosted as his '' Brozo '' character), followed by an in-studio interview with a completely unsuspecting Bejarano. Bejarano claimed that the money, which was given to him by Carlos Ahumada Kurtz , an Argentine newspaper owner and city contractor, was a cash contribution for the political campaign of Leticia Robles (unrelated to Rosario Robles ), a city borough mayor. Robles denied involvement in any illegal campaign financing. In this case, too, López Obrador failed to quickly distance himself from the scandal, placing the blame on a conspiracy by Carlos Ahumada and his political opponents (like ex-president Carlos Salinas ), remaining silent about Bejarano. As more videotapes were released, AMLO found it difficult to not say anything about Bejarano's involvement and after a few months he declared he had done something inappropriate. Carlos Ahumada, who fled to Cuba to avoid prosecution, was captured by the Cuban government and held in custody, incommunicado, for some weeks before being deported to Mexico. Ahumada says he videotaped the encounters for his own safety as he felt threatened by Bejarano's cash requests, and released them as a desperate measure when his contracts with the city government were cancelled.
He also gave money to PRD's Carlos Ímaz , another borough mayor, who was introduced to Ahumada by Rosario Robles , AMLO's predecessor.
Carlos Ahumada was imprisoned in one of Mexico City's prisons, in complete isolation; media requests to interview him have been denied. About a year later, in April 2005 , when the possibility of Ahumada being found innocent of all charges and released in the following months became real, AMLO's government pressed a new charge, low quality work in one of Ahumada's contracts. This charge, a civil offense that can't be punished by prison time, will keep Ahumada in jail for one or two more years, since the attorney general refused to receive evidence in his favor in the early stages of this new process, which would have allowed Ahumada to be processed outside jail.

Bejarano was controversially freed on bail on 2005; Carlos Imaz was found guilty and fined. Ahumada and Ponce remain in custody, Ahumada has been held in complete isolation since he was jailed.


AFTERMATH

Despite the involvement of his collaborators, reacting slowly to the scandals and his stubborn insistence on placing the blame on his political enemies only, up to now, threre might be more videos, there's no evidence AMLO participated himself in anything illegal, so he emerged from the scandals with his public image relatively unscathed.