Ghost Companies Land at Santa Lucía Airport
Santa Lucía was the showpiece of López Obrador's decision to make the army his builder of choice. I reviewed 966 contracts awarded by the military engineers running the project, cross-checked their suppliers against Mexico's commercial and property registries, and visited the addresses those companies had registered, and found the army had paid billions of dollars to shell companies with no verifiable operations and to firms already accused of embezzling public funds. Four days later, López Obrador declared his infrastructure projects a matter of national security, putting them beyond public records requests. Mexico's Supreme Court struck the decree down in 2023.
