Peña Nieto, seven years later

Last weekend, news broke from Israel, seemingly explosive, and not exactly because it comes from a country at war. It's a journalistic missile aimed at ruffling a forelock made of hair held together by the iron gel of corruption. Hair that wasn't ruffled seven years ago, as we who voted for today's inhabitant of La Chingada, in vain, hoped.

Enough of these inappropriate tropes – my slightly pissed-off other self tells me – stop usurping language and speak – write – in the manner of the Capsicum genus of angiosperm plants with varied fruits, most of them spicy in flavor, used in national gastronomy.

So let's get straight to the point: a report by the Israeli newspaper The Marker revealed that former President Enrique Peña Nieto received bribes of up to $25 million from two Israeli businessmen, Avishai Neriah and Uri Ansbacher, linked to the company that markets the Pegasus malware. In exchange for this sum, according to Gur Megiddo's investigation, Neriah and Ansbacher were awarded lucrative contracts by the Atlacomulco native.

At her morning press conference last Monday, President Claudia Sheinbaum made a laconic comment regarding the news: "Well, it was kind of tremendous," and briefly commented on the news. She was no more explicit the following day when reporter Nancy Flores of the magazine 'Contralínea' asked about the progress or status of the complaints filed in 2022 by the Financial Intelligence Unit with the Attorney General's Office regarding alleged corruption cases involving the Mexican national, along with members of his family and associates. The president, without hesitation, replied: "Well, the prosecutor would have to answer; that's up to him."

Prosecutor Alejandro Gertz Manero, slow but lazy, replied: “Indeed, since the beginning of the previous administration (which, as we know, began in 2022), several complaints have been filed that have not been corroborated by sufficient evidence. This case is compounded by this new case (…) We are going to demand that the Israeli authorities add this media-related information to a file so we can move forward. Our relationship with these authorities has not been easy; we have had many problems (…) We have cases that have been pending for several years (those of Tomás Zerón and Andrés Roemer). I hope that in this case we will have a faster response.” Between the Israelis' slowness and Gertz Manero's calm, the case will be resolved when Peña Nieto has spent his fortune or goes bald—whichever comes first.

For his part, the alleged defendant, who alternates his good life between the Dominican Republic and Spain, between hole and hole—golf and women—through X, argued in his defense: “I regret coming across articles that, without the minimum journalistic rigor, make statements lightly and fraudulently. The article about alleged contributions (a euphemistic way of referring to bribery, kickbacks, or kickbacks) is completely false. It is an insinuation devoid of any basis. The question remains, in whose interest such publication is made.” In the interest of those of us who pay taxes that you and your gang stole and squandered.

He later expanded on what he'd expressed on social media in an interview with Ciro Gómez Leyva, in the journalist's own style. To conclude the little over 19 minutes of conversation, in which he defended himself and praised his government, he said: "I dedicated myself as president of the republic to serving Mexico (...) I carry Mexico tattooed in my heart; it's my homeland, it's my heart, I love it dearly." I don't know what the readers think, but I don't believe him, unless he's talking about the frustrated heart he tried to make with his hands that September 15th.