- The funds were allocated to a company linked to the brother of Dionisio Pérez Jácome Friscione when he was Mexico’s permanent representative to the OECD
- José Antonio Kuribreña Arbide, cousin of José Antonio Meade, was the statutory auditor of the receiving company
Mexico City, April 10, 2018.- Documents released by ChedrauiLeaks.org show that when the Agriculture Ministry (Sagarpa) and the Finance Ministry (SHCP) paid between 7.5 and 10.5 million pesos to a coffee processor in 2014, the company selected as its statutory auditor Jose Antonio Kuribreña Arbide, the trusted first cousin of the PRI presidential candidate Jose Antonio Meade Kuribreña.
SAGARPA and SHCP provided the money through an agricultural development fund, FICA AgroPyME, to Encore Inc, SAPI de CV, which produces roasted Mexican coffee adding a coffee ingredient sold by an American company based in the farmland outside Chicago.
FICA AgroPyME is managed by FOCIR, the Rural Sector Capitalization and Investment Fund, which is itself coordinated by the SHCP.
Meade Kuribreña was Minister of Foreign Affairs when Encore Inc got its SAGARPA and SHCP funding. Meade later became SHCP Minister in 2016.
Encore Inc. was originally co-founded in 2004 by Dionisio Arturo Pérez Jácome Friscione, who is now Mexico’s ambassador to Canada after Peña Nieto selected him in 2017. He was Mexico’s permanent representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development when SAGARPA and the SHCP paid into Encore Inc.
Alberto Pérez Jácome Friscione was the majority shareholder of Encore Inc when the shareholders voted in 2014 to bring in Jose Antonio Kuribreña Arbide and to issue shares to FICA AgroPyME. Alberto Pérez Jácome Friscione is the director general of Grupo Hermes Infraestructura.
Jose Antonio Kuribreña Arbide was trusted enough by the Meade family that he co-founded a separate company, Kubre SA de CV, with Juana Cuevas two months before she and Jose Antonio Meade Kuribreña were married. The company was created together with Jose Antonio Meade’s brother Pedro Meade Kuribreña and other close relatives in April 1994. Kuribreña Arbide was granted the power to represent Kubre in lawsuits and collections at the time.
ChedrauiLeaks.org has made the documents available on its website at: http://chedrauileaks.org/meade/
About ChedrauiLeaks.org
ChedrauiLeaks.org is a project of the United Food and Commercial Workers, to investigate the connections between the Chedraui family and other Mexican elites as well as their links to business and property in the United States, the business and political activities of Mexican elites generally, and provide information about the struggle of El Super workers for a better life. ChedrauiLeaks is not stating that any members of the Chedraui family or its businesses had any involvement with the companies referenced in this press release.