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Top former Mexican oil executive Emilio Lozoya will not contest extradition from Spain to face charges over the vast Odebrecht corruption scandal, the public prosecutor’s office said Tuesday.
Lozoya presented himself to Spanish magistrates on Monday and gave his “express consent to be handed over to the Mexican authorities offering his collaboration to establish and clarify the facts in the charges against him,” Attorney General Alejandro Gertz told reporters.
Lozoya, chief executive of the PEMEX state oil company from 2012-2016, is the highest-level Mexican executive to be arrested in connection with Odebrecht, which has felled ex-presidents and top officials in several countries.
He is a former aide to Enrique Pena Nieto, Mexico’s president from 2012-2018, who is also being investigated over his links to the oil executive.
Lozoya was arrested in February in Malaga on a warrant issued by Mexican authorities and has been held in a Madrid prison.
He is wanted for allegedly accepting millions of dollars in bribes from the Brazilian construction giant, which doled out almost $1 billion in kickbacks to officials across Latin America to win lucrative public works contracts.
The payouts allegedly started in 2012, when he was chief international strategist for Nieto who at the time was running for president. Part of the money was allegedly used to finance Nieto’s campaign.
Lozoya is also wanted on money laundering charges over PEMEX’s acquisition in 2014 of a defunct fertilizer plant for nearly $500 million. Lozoya denies all the accusations against him.