The Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS) purchased medications worth more than half a billion pesos between 2015 and 2018 from a company owned by the son of one of its board members, according to an anti-graft group.

Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) said it obtained documents that show that the pharmaceutical company Marzam received contracts in that period for more than 526 million pesos (US $27.1 million at today’s exchange rate).

Luis Doporto Alejandre, son of Héctor Doporto Ramírez, purchased Marzam in 2015.

For the next three years, the company’s sales to IMSS, which operates public hospitals and health care clinics, were more than five times greater than its sales to the same government organization in the much longer period between 2002 and 2014.

Héctor Doporto has sat on the IMSS board since 2010.

MCCI said in its investigation report that as the value of Marzam’s contracts with IMSS multiplied, the company was under investigation by federal authorities for financial crimes.

Luis Doporto Alejandre told MCCI that although his father sat on the IMMS board, he was a substitute rather than a permanent member and never involved in purchasing processes, “least of all for medications and dressing materials.”

Source: El Financiero (sp)