[Excerpt translation from Spanish to English provided by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre]

"The usual corrupt people win Mayan Train tender", April 24, 2020

...The federal government awarded the first contract for the construction of the Mayan Train to the consortium led by the Chinese parastatal China Communications Construction Company Ltd and the Portuguese Mota-Engil -one of the most favoured companies in public works contracts during the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto-, for a total amount of $15.538 billion pesos. During the six years of Peña Nieto, Mota-Engil, the Portuguese construction company chaired by Carlos Filipe Dos Santos Martin, operated in Mexico with the entrepreneur Jose Miguel Bejos, a character very close to the former president, who even rented a house during the transition period. According to reports, Mota Engil Mexico left unfinished, in 2014, the construction of two highways in Veracruz and Tamaulipas. And in 2011, the World Bank excluded, for eight years, the state-owned China Communications Construction Company and all its subsidiaries from infrastructure projects it finances in various countries, due to fraudulent practices in road improvement programs in the Philippines.