The President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo
The administration of Enrique Peña Nieto marked a significant turning point in the history of corruption in Mexico. Scandals like the “Estafa Maestra,” “Operación Safiro,” the “Casa Blanca,” and “Odebrecht” epitomized the declining PRI-era governance. Ironically, it was during this administration that the National Anti-Corruption System (SNA) was established, an ambitious framework that promised to unite all institutions responsible for fighting corruption and give a leading role to citizens. However, with the rise of Morena to power, first with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now with Claudia Sheinbaum, that system has been pushed into irrelevance. With information from El País.
Corruption has not disappeared; on the contrary, it has evolved. Cases like tax evasion and Segalmex illustrate the ongoing problem, alongside a steadfast impunity: only a tiny fraction of cases make it to court.
During López Obrador’s presidency, the anti-corruption strategy focused on the Executive branch. The president considered himself a moral guarantor of public honesty, operating under the belief that “corruption is swept from the top down.” However, reality contradicted this axiom. The Superior Audit Office documented irregularities exceeding 5 billion pesos in the last year of his term.
Meanwhile, the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information, and Personal Data Protection (INAI) was undermined, and channels for citizen oversight were closed. The Segalmex case stands as a prime example of institutional failure: a misappropriation of at least 3 billion pesos, where the prosecution acted selectively, excluding the then-head of the agency, Ignacio Ovalle, a longtime friend of López Obrador, who was defended publicly by the ex-president without any proof of his innocence.
Despite her promise to create a Federal Anti-Corruption Agency, current president Claudia Sheinbaum has maintained the status quo: the project has remained largely theoretical. According to Milenio, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office, promoted by the SNA itself, has shelved over a thousand cases and brought merely 3% of cases to court.
Today, the National Anti-Corruption System is dominated by the ruling party. Its members block attempts at genuine oversight. Attorney Vania Pérez, president of the Citizen Participation Committee, reported how institutional representatives have hindered investigations into misappropriations in Conade, the Salina Cruz refinery, Segalmex, the “Estafa Maestra,” and Odebrecht bribery. Pérez even faced internal retaliation when she called for investigating the assets of Morena senator Adán Augusto López, sparking a campaign to discredit her. “The SNA was born as an independent body from power, but it has been captured. It became political loot,” she lamented.
Mexico, Pérez warns, has been left defenseless against corruption, which has now taken on forms of transnational macro-criminality. “Unlike other countries with a strong rule of law, Mexico lacks the controls to address or correct the conditions that give rise to corruption,” she explained.
The consequences are stark. In February, Transparency International placed Mexico in the worst position in its history on the Corruption Perception Index, comparable to nations like Iraq, Uganda, or Nigeria.
For Eduardo Bohórquez, director of Transparencia Mexicana, the anti-corruption structure operates according to the current president’s interests. The tax evasion case, he says, progressed only because it was politically advantageous. “It shows that the key orchestrator of the system remains the president,” he pointed out.
Both Bohórquez and Pérez agree that corruption in Mexico is no longer merely an administrative offense: it is intertwined with money laundering, organized crime, and complex financial networks. Combating it requires a systemic vision, coordination, and strong institutions. Yet, Mexico has chosen the opposite path: weakening its controls and relying on presidential will.
The result, as experts warn, is a loss of capacity to tackle macro-criminal networks that operate with complete impunity. Or, in Bohórquez’s words, “Mexico has given up on seeing the forest because it’s fixated on a single leaf.”