Report on Mexican Attorney General’s Ferrari Drives Corruption Debate VOA News | |
go to original September 6, 2017 |
Mexican General Attorney Raul Cervantes speaks during a press conference (Getty/Ronaldo Schemidt)
A report that Mexico's attorney general owns a Ferrari registered at an unoccupied house has added a twist to a growing political battle over who will lead a new institution designed to battle corruption.
The report by a Mexican anti-graft group published on Monday said Mexican Attorney General Raul Cervantes had a $218,000 Ferrari registered at an apparently unoccupied house, worth $25,000, in the state of Morelos that also had two other Ferraris and an Audi registered to the same address.
Cervantes said through his lawyer he bought a 2011 Ferrari with his earnings as a private lawyer before entering public service, and that it was registered at that address by the company that had imported the luxury car.
Cervantes is already at the centre of a growing political battle in Mexico, which is implementing a new anti-corruption system that will replace the current attorney general's office with a new institution next year that is designed to be more independent from political interference.
President Enrique Pena Nieto's administration has been hit by conflict of interest scandals and his Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) has been battered by corruption allegations against several governors.
Revelations about the lavish lifestyles of politicians has further damaged the popularity of the ruling class in a country where 44 percent of people are officially poor.
Opposition lawmakers have objected to allowing Cervantes to become the head of the new prosecutor general's office, a figure who will serve a 9-year term in a move away from the current system where the president nominates the attorney general.
Read the rest at VOA News
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