On the first day of his inauguration, Miguel Ángel Navarro Quintero realized the “financial gravity situation” that reigned in the state in which he had been elected governor. President Morena says that as of September 19, 2021, the Nayarit government owed 6.7 billion pesos to private banks, 2.7 billion pesos to SAT, and 800 million pesos to ISSSTE, for a total of approximately $560 million. A panorama “that would generate a very short-term social crisis”, “with a depopulated pension fund and resources tied up”. Faced with the governor’s question – “how to capitalize Nayarit?” – alarms were growing about irregularities within a powerful state trust, FIBBA (the Bandera Bay Trust), which controlled hundreds of hectares on the coast. There was the germ of a joint operation between the state government and the Office of the Attorney General (FGR) “like there had never been before”, which would end up involving two former governors and dismantling a real estate corruption network in the luxurious Riviera Nayarita.
The Nuevo Nayarit mega-operation began in early 2022, but it was Tuesday when the state government and FGR presented their findings at federal facilities in Mexico City. In total, 960 hectares on the coast have been recovered, which is equivalent to more than 530 real estate lots, worth 50 billion pesos (about 2,700 million dollars). This is 92% of all land that can be reclaimed. “We are aiming for 100%,” the governor said.
Nayarit authorities glorified the operation, which also received an avalanche of litigation against it. “It is a unique case in the history of Mexico,” defined Navarro Quintero; “one of the most complex investigations in recent history, not only in Nayarit, but in Mexico,” added prosecutor Petronilo Díaz, or “an all-out battle,” said the legal coordinator of the Nayarit government, Gabriel Camarena, who in August was denounced for abuse of office, among other crimes, in this case.
The investigation began in February 2022, when the Nayarit Prosecutor’s Office received a complaint from FIBBA for fraudulent administration and influence peddling against former state and federal public employees, former governors, individuals and companies, who benefited from alleged illicit real estate transactions. From 2005 to 2021, state authorities indicated, the Bahía de Bandera Trust allowed land on Nayarita beach to be handed over at ridiculous prices. “For example, 50 pesos per square meter facing the sea,” Camarena explained.
Ney González (governor from 2005 to 2011) and Roberto Sandoval (who led the state until 2017) are also involved in this project, said Cristina Reséndiz, prosecutor specializing in competition control at the FGR. The official specified that González has a federal arrest warrant from 2023 for the crime of operations with resources of illicit origin. Furthermore, he also has a red card from Interpol, precisely for this case, but the former governor is still at large. As for Sandoval, Reséndiz said his case remains under investigation. The PRI leader, arrested for the same crime in June 2021 and since then detained in the federal prison of El Rincón, was convicted only two months ago for money laundering.
Authorities would not provide the names of the companies or other individuals involved, but indicated that “multiple” arrest warrants have been issued in connection with this network for crimes of operations with assets of illicit origin, influence peddling and violations of the Protection Law, among others. “Furthermore, we investigated both former civil servants and relatives in their close circles,” the Nayarit prosecutor said.
The official explained that more than 350 accounts, corresponding to natural and legal persons, worth more than 7.2 billion pesos, were blocked, searches were carried out and also inspections of notaries “linked to illicit operations in which alterations of books, registers and official documents were detected, confirming the existence of a carefully planned network to simulate legal acts and strip the State of highly valuable assets.”
FIBBA was born as a public body to promote the tourist development of the coast of Nayarit, but in 20 years it has become a cornerstone of this system of corruption, in which there are subdivisions, condominium towers, shopping centers and land in the municipalities of Bahía de Banderas and Compostela.
Now those lands are under the control of the state, which has amended the Constitution to prevent them from being sold again, according to the governor. The government of Nayarit has created two mechanisms around this case: the Sovereign Fund Nuevo Nayarit (FOSON) and the Savings Fund for the Decent Retirement of Workers of Nayarit (FAN). The objective of both is, on the one hand, to “protect” these properties and, on the other, to profit from them. Thus, the government has already entered as a partner in four real estate projects, from which it will receive 18% of the profits. Of these profits, the governor explained, 51% will be allocated to social infrastructure and 49% to the Nayarit Savings Fund, for workers’ pensions. “The capital is recovered, which is invested in investment funds – where there will no longer be the temptation to sell it – and collection is improved,” concluded the governor, who found his answer there on how to capitalize on Nayarit.
