Mexico: Oil Union Blues

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Bilking workers of millions

Murder, kidnaping, hired guns, fraud, embezzlement, rake-offs, power struggles—sounds like gangland crime, Chicago-style. But according to accounts of a current union scandal, those are also the standard ingredients of the oil business, Mexican-style. The sordid revelations are the latest, and most titillating, evidence of the widespread corruption that flourished under President Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado's predecessor, José López Portillo. Last week Senator Ramón Martínez Martín, a former leader of the teachers' union, called for a complete investigation of the allegations of wrongdoing. If proved, he said, the charges against one of Mexico's largest unions "would be considered crimes against the economy and against the oil workers."

The scandal came to the surface in August, when Salvador Barragán Camacho, leader of the powerful Oil Workers' Union of the Mexican Republic, accused fellow Union Executive Héctor García Hernandez (alias El Trampas, the trickster) of stealing some $6.6 million in union funds. The overweight, droopy-eyed García promptly sold most of his Mexican assets, then crossed the border to his $250,000 town house in McAllen, Texas. There, García fired off a letter to President De la Madrid accusing Barragán and the alleged behind-the-scenes "godfather" of the union, Joaquín Hernández Galícia (alias La Quina, a diminutive for his first name) of bilking the union of more than $130 million, 20 times the amount he was accused of taking. García was in a position to know, he later claimed, because he had acted as bagman for the two.

If García thought he was safe in Texas, he soon learned otherwise. According to McAllen police, two thugs kidnaped García at gunpoint early last month and spirited him to Mexico. There he was handed over to Mexican authorities, who slapped him behind bars on fraud charges. Garcia told officials that he feared for his life, probably with good reason. The day after his jailing, another union boss, Oscar Torres Pancardo, was killed in a mysterious crash. In an apparent attempt to disguise the circumstances, his bodyguards fatally shot Torres' driver in the head. At a rare press conference, the perspiring Barragán nervously endorsed a government inquiry into the Torres death. Barragán then charged that he was the intended victim of a murder plot hatched by none other than Garcia.

Mexico's giant national oil company, Pemex, appears to have been a particularly fertile breeding ground for vice. Since coming to office last year, De la Madrid has pursued a vigorous "moral renovation" campaign aimed at stemming the high-level graft that was rampant in Mexico. Last July a judge had former Pemex Director Jorge Díaz Serrano arrested on a $34 million fraud charge. Contrary to custom, Díaz Serrano was not bailed out by political friends, but still sits in Mexico City's Southern Penitentiary, awaiting trial.