Are US Companies More Willing to Play Along with Mexico's Corruption Culture? Dolia Estevez - Forbes
go to original April 17, 2014

A Banamex automatic teller machine in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, Mexico. (Wikipedia)

Citigroup disclosed this week that it had found another case of fraud in its accounts-receivable program at Banamex, its Mexican unit, involving a supplier to Mexico’s state oil monopoly Pemex.

... Gerspach reported that the breach involved less than $30 million in costs to Citigroup. He added that the supplier was in the process of paying back Citigroup and the bank expected “full restitution.”

... The new fraud revelation comes two months after Citigroup alleged that it had uncovered at least $400 million in fraudulent loans to Oceanografía, a Mexican oil company that supplies services to Pemex. Oceanografía was accused by Citigroup of falsifying invoices to bilk Banamex out of millions of dollars. The alleged fraud by Evya followed the same scheme.

... American companies are increasingly being dragged into Mexico’s corruption game. Last week, the Department of Justice announced that computing multinational Hewlett-Packard agreed to pay U.S. regulators $108 million to settle a corruption scandal involving employees at subsidiaries in three countries - Russia, Poland and Mexico – charged with bribing government officials to win and retain lucrative public contracts. U.S. prosecutors said that HP paid a $1.41 million “commission” to win a software deal with Pemex, the Mexican state oil company.

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