By MARK LORENZANA

Mexico’s Special Prosecutor’s Office for Electoral Crimes (FEDE) has concluded that Pío López Obrador, brother of Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), did not commit any electoral crime.

Incidentally, José Agustín Ortiz Pinchetti, FEDE head, is a member of AMLO’s leftist National Regeneration Movement (Morena).

Ortiz Pinchetti, in his decision, determined that Pío López Obrador allegedly receiving cash in 2015, which was packed in envelopes and paper bags, did not constitute a crime because there was not “sufficient evidence.”

In August of 2020, two video clips — allegedly recorded in June 2015 — were released in which Pío López Obrador is seen receiving large sums of cash from David León Méndez, a former civil protection chief who was later appointed by AMLO to run a state entity to distribute medical supplies.

The money that Pío López Obrador reportedly received was to allegedly reinforce Morena’s operation in the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas for the 2018 Mexican general election. In that election, AMLO won the presidency, and Morena’s standard bearer for Chiapas — Rutilio Cruz Escandón Cadenas — took the gubernatorial seat.

On Oct. 7, 2021, AMLO said that if his brother is found guilty, Pío should be punished, and that he would not intervene.

“I won’t protect anyone,” AMLO said. “If my brother is responsible, let him be punished.”