Mexican pride over Fátima Bosch’s victory in the Miss Universe pageant is starting to melt away. Raúl Rocha Cantú, a businessman who owns a conglomerate of companies, including the beauty pageant, is under investigation by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime. The Judiciary of the Federation has issued an arrest warrant against a group of people in which Rocha’s name appears, according to the resolution to which EL PAÍS has had access. The authorities are looking for the tycoon for his participation in a drug, weapons and fuel trafficking network between Guatemala and Mexico, according to what was published by the newspaper. Reform.
The arrest warrant against Rocha was issued on September 15 in Querétaro. However, the investigation began on November 29, 2024 due to an anonymous complaint that indicated the businessman and a network of connections trafficked weapons and drugs from the southern border to sell them to organized crime. The network that the entrepreneur manages and finances is also said to be dedicated to fuel smuggling which supplies several service stations in Mexico with clandestine hydrocarbons.
Rocha is the owner of the company Soluciones Gasiferas del Sur SA de CV, an entity that has contracts with Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), an agreement that was at the center of controversy after the competition won by Fátima Bosch, a native of Tabasco. The newly crowned Miss Universe 2025 is the daughter of Bernardo Bosch, part of Pemex’s strategic staff for almost three decades and current advisor to the company’s general management in the Exploration and Production sectors.
When two contest judges resigned amid allegations of pressure to favor Bosch in the contest, criticism cornered Rocha. The businessman, however, denied the plot to manipulate the victory of the Tabasco company, but acknowledged the existence of a business link with Pemex. “During the period in which negotiations for this competition took place, I had no direct or indirect relationship with any member or director of Miss Universe, much less any member of the Bosch family,” Rocha said. President Claudia Sheinbaum, when questioned about the case, assured that it is a ridiculous accusation.
Now, the businessman who owns a conglomerate of industrial and material planning companies, casinos, as well as several fuel distribution companies, is in the middle of the prosecutor’s target. Investigators link him to one of the properties where huachicol smuggled from Guatemala was stored and report calls between members of the network in which his name appears.
