This Mexico SA column by Carlos Fernández-Vega originally appeared in the September 19, 2025 version of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.
It may seem like a bad joke, but everything indicates that tax evader Ricardo Salinas Pliego has convinced himself that he would be “the best” candidate for the Presidency of the Republic for the 2030 elections (a sort of Xóchitl Gálvez abonera) and to make that wet dream come true he has begun to move his pieces, but above all his checkbook, in the right-wing favor buying and selling market, where any dirty tricks – like those he carries out daily – are not only well regarded, but applauded.
So, with his wet dream, what would the businessman gain from the small payments and the interest on the premiums? To start with, and in the extremely unlikely event that he reaches the National Palace, something like 74 billion pesos (at current prices), which is the accumulated amount of his tax evasion. And if between now and 2030 the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation finally forces him to pay this debt, the tycoon, now with the presidential sash on his chest, would not only recover this multimillion-dollar amount, but would substantially increase it; that is, he would collect it the Chinese way [racist idiom unfortunately common in Mexico indicating recovering a debt in an underhanded, profiteering manner – ed.], as he usually does.
Salinas Pliego not only abhors the State, but attributes to it every calamity ever, except when that abominable, sulfur-scented entity feeds the magnate’s coffers, and of this there is ample evidence. In fact, in 1993 Carlos Salinas de Gortari (with a little push from his brother Raúl) handed over the Mexican Television Institute (Imevisión, now TV Azteca), then property of the despicable State, to him. This led to the fact that in 1994 the man with the small subscriptions appeared for the first time, with $1.2 billion, on Forbes‘ list of Mexican billionaires.
Along those lines, his fortune grew and grew, reaching, according to Forbes, $13.4 billion in 2024. But something happened (it seems the stinking State was no longer pampering him, according to Héctor Aguilar Camín), because by 2025 his fortune had been reduced to $4.9 billion. In any case, Salinas Pliego’s tax evasion to date amounts to around $3.7 billion, equivalent to 28 and 75 percent, respectively, of the amounts cited by Forbes. In other words, he has robbed his favorite villain to pad his own pockets.
All of this without forgetting that Salinas Pliego’s fortune has largely been amassed at the expense of his hated state: concessions (telecommunications, banking, Afore [privatized pensions built on the Pinochet model, still not removed by the Morena government and a major point in the 2025 teachers’ strike – ed], insurance, mining, highways, telephone services, golf courses, and the theft of another concession: Channel 40), privatizations (Imevisión), multi-million dollar advertising during the PRI and PAN governments, the “rescue” of Fobaproa (National Action Party), tax forgiveness, soccer teams, and much more. But, he says, “I hate the state; it’s the problem, not the solution,” knowing that without it he would never have appeared in Forbes.
It’s worth remembering the profit he obtained from the illegal bank “rescue” with state resources: the company Salinas y Rocha (founded by Salinas Pliego’s great-grandfather) left debts of more than $500 million in the belly of Fobaproa at the exchange rate of the time (1995); four years later, in March 1999, Salinas Pliego himself, through Elektra, bought back the company for just 15 percent of what the abominable state paid the banks for said debt.
A bargain, because with the repurchase of the family business, Salinas Pliego added 98 stores (87 traditional and 11 department stores) to his inventory of small subscriptions and interest-based loans. For every peso the malevolent State paid to “rescue” Salinas and Rocha, Salinas Pliego paid 15 cents, although on that occasion he didn’t mention the “government supporters.”
President Sheinbaum addressed this issue: “Now there’s ‘Mexicans for Corruption’ in the picture, right? With Salinas Pliego. I mean, they’ve gone from Claudio X. González (the previous clown) to a new exponent (the clown of the small payments and the premium interest). Now, look: all for not paying taxes. I mean, imagine what the people of Mexico think. Because everyone has the right to run for president, right? We’re a free country. But what does a Mexican man or woman think of a businessman who wants to run for president because he doesn’t want to pay taxes? Well, all by himself, right?”
By the way, the joke is called the “Anti-Crime and Anti-Corruption Movement.”
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