Follow
the money

You know a government by who it pays.

Part one of this investigation followed the narco: labs, fuel theft, an arena and a 3.8-million-dollar condo in Sunny Isles. This part follows public money. Where it went, who collected it and who signed.

There are three routes. The first crosses the border: two state government offices in the United States that opened with a party and closed with no explanation. The second stays home: five builders holding the most expensive public works of this administration. The third points to 2027: an early campaign of painted walls, banners and billboards that, according to the state's own electoral court, nobody can say who paid for.

All three end in the same place: Lorena Cuéllar's circle.

They opened with a carnival in Manhattan. They closed without telling anyone.

April 2022: Lorena Cuéllar opens Casa Tlaxcala in New York, the state government's first office on U.S. soil, serving migrants in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The governor travels at least three times to oversee it. September 2023: Casa Tlaxcala California opens, alongside the Oxnard consulate.

October 2025: the New York office closes overnight, with no notice, in the middle of a wave of raids. Three to four thousand people lose the service. The government blames financial problems and promises help over WhatsApp. Those who write get no answer.

One of the project's founders gave another reason. The staff running the office were Tlaxcala state government employees who were in the United States on business visas. A B-1 visa does not allow a person to take employment or render services on U.S. soil. Three years of a government office run that way is a problem of immigration status and of the statements used to obtain those visas.

The complaint I filed in the United States goes further: it states that the staff of those offices gave cover to trafficking networks from Tenancingo, the town with federal convictions in Brooklyn, and that this is the real reason for the closure. It also names Paula Beatriz Zabalza Cisneros, director of Migrant Affairs and a cousin of the governor, who headed both Casas Tlaxcala.

The government never published what those offices cost in salaries, rent and travel, or their final results. The link to the Casas Tlaxcala is still dead on the official website.

The most expensive works of this administration land again and again on the same handful of companies.

Mira, Colosal, Consul, Hoffen and MUT. Not all were no-bid awards and not all are from the same year. But together, the identified works exceed 1.6 billion pesos. And behind every corporate name there is a person: Arturo López López at Mira, Fernando Alva Arámburo at Colosal, Clara Angélica Pérez Sánchez at Consul, Felipe Villegas Nava at Hoffen. Tap each company.

The Colosal case changes everything. The company was incorporated in Puebla on December 6, 2021, with the governor already in office, and within a few years it collected more than 412 million pesos in public works. Its manager, Alva Arámburo, had registered Colosal International Services LLC in Florida on February 22, 2021, six months before she took office. He holds six companies there. One bought an oceanfront condo for 3.8 million dollars.

The tender was held. A single bidder showed up.

Grupo Comercial Mira took 395,551,706 pesos to rehabilitate the Tlaxcala Fairgrounds, tender LPE-014-26. Advance payment: 118,665,000, 30% of the contract before a single brick is laid. Time allowed to review a project of almost 400 million: ten days.

Mira had come from a 2.95 million no-bid award in 2023. Then 36.5 million at the Children's Hospital in 2024. Then this. The federal audit office had already found in Baja California Sur a 15.95 million discrepancy over subcontracted work with no proven authorization, which ended up returned to the Treasury.

Now the calendar. The venue opens on October 14. The arena opens on the 23rd. The works are delivered on November 8. The Fair closes on the 16th. The government opens a venue whose rehabilitation has not been delivered. Tap each date.

It is the same venue where the arena from part one opens. The same one whose concession contract the government spokesman admitted he does not know when it expires.

The contractor who gets the most public works owns an oceanfront condo in Florida.

In 2026 Colosal signed the fourth stage of the Administrative City for 210,800,068.35 pesos, with an advance of more than 63 million. In Florida, its manager registered six companies. One of them, ALDEZA LLC, was formed on April 13, 2023 and 47 days later bought unit 1403 at 18975 Collins Avenue, in Sunny Isles Beach, for 3,800,000 dollars. It is in the Miami-Dade County records.

The Tlaxcala government said the Miami apartments were "false information." That condo exists. The complaint I filed in the United States states that the contractor's Florida properties are part of the assets of the governor's circle.

The heir apparent is already on the walls. What does not appear is the invoice.

Alfonso Sánchez García was infrastructure secretary in Cuéllar's government, the agency that executes the public works of the contractors' club. Today he is mayor of the state capital and the governor's group's pick for 2027. He is the son of former governor Alfonso Sánchez Anaya.

In June 2026 the Tlaxcala Electoral Institute verified through its own electoral clerks 34 painted walls, 4 banners, 8 billboards and 2 stickers with his name and image, spread across more than thirty municipalities, and ordered him to remove them within 48 hours. Tap each type.

That is the finding. Forty-eight pieces of propaganda verified by the authority, in more than thirty municipalities, and no record of who paid for them. Painted walls and rented billboards cost money. If the payer does not appear, the question does.

The rival faction inside Morena circulated videos of operatives leaving the Government House to hand out propaganda, paint walls and promote social programs in Sánchez García's name. The complaint I filed in the United States states that state government resources and staff were used to build the succession.

Two figures about the same money. Both cannot be true.

Mexico's federal audit office reviewed federal spending in Tlaxcala for 2023. Adding its three releases, 850,147,300 pesos were left pending explanation across the state government, towns and universities. The state government alone was flagged for 314.3 million: 234.8 in federal revenue sharing, 22.2 in health and 56.9 in social infrastructure. For 2024, the first release added another 25.5 million.

The official answer came in two steps. First, that the flagged amount was only 1.6% of the 19.494 billion it spent. Then, in September 2026, that for 2021 to 2023 only 250,000 pesos remain pending. Flip the switch.

A finding can be cleared with documents. So there is one question: the government should publish its clearance filings and the auditor should confirm each one. Until then, the gap between 850 million and 250,000 pesos is what this investigation puts on the table.

This is what I filed with the DOJ and the State Department about the money trail.

Each element was delivered with evidence and testimony. On the back of each card is the public support and the statute that takes it to a U.S. court. Tap each card.