It never fails: the tentacles of AMLO’s son always appear wherever government money is involved. And those ambitious tentacles remain intact.
When Andy López Beltrán left his father’s home—his father being the then-opposition leader Andrés Manuel López Obrador—during his teenage years, one of the places where he found shelter was the home of his close friend Carlos Torres. They are like brothers; they openly say so.
The day before yesterday, Carlos Torres was appointed by the President of Mexico as Director General of two government banks: Nacional Financiera (Nafin) and the National Bank of Foreign Trade (Bancomext). He will manage assets totaling 700 billion pesos.
One might be misled by Andy López Beltrán’s strategic retreat—leaving his post in the Morena leadership (with failure already looming in the Coahuila election) to focus on becoming a federal deputy.
Top-level officials in President Sheinbaum’s administration state it plainly: Andy still wields immense influence, and his people are embedded everywhere. The president’s son carries weight. Despite the baggage of corruption scandals trailing him, he remains a powerful figure.
Many within Morena know the story of the brotherhood between Andy and Carlos Torres; several shared it with me for this column. Their closeness and mutual trust are such that when Andrés Manuel López Obrador came to power, he brought Torres over from the private sector (his father is a lawyer and businessman) and appointed him Technical Secretary of the Presidential Cabinet.
The role was a perfect fit for his profile. Within Andy’s “clan” of friends, Carlos Torres was always considered the intellectual type—the “scientist”—because he had studied at the University of Bath in England.
Midway through the administration, when the scandal broke surrounding Gabriel García—López Obrador’s financial operator who had been entrusted with social programs but became entangled in various corruption scandals—Carlos Torres took charge of the General Coordination of Welfare Programs. At that time, the social programs had a budget of 350 billion pesos. That is how Carlos Torres began. They are currently on track to reach a trillion pesos.
In that role—it has been reported—he frequently clashed with the Secretary of Welfare, Ariadna Montiel, who is now the national leader of Morena. In 2024, he was offered a congressional candidacy, but campaigning and rubbing shoulders with the public are not his style; he chose to maintain his long-standing low profile—staying out of the spotlight and away from scrutiny—while working quietly behind the scenes for his “brother,” Andy.
Source: mexicodailypost
