When López Obrador’s administration began, the young Italian-born businessman Jorge Stephan Romita Iturbe was a simple office supply vendor for the Mexican government.
Today, he has amassed contracts worth 4.5 billion pesos (approximately 258 million USD). He sells all kinds of different products and services to the current administration now, from face masks and food baskets to underwater reconnaissance equipment for Customs and immigration filters for the airport.
But nothing as sensitive—and suspicious—as what, according to records from the official Compras MX website consulted in December, he was recently awarded through direct contracting, without any bidding process: Romita will be in charge of collecting the biometric data of all Mexicans.
A 1.2 billion peso deal that bears the signature of the controversial “Pepe” Merino, head of the Digital Transformation Agency in President Sheinbaum’s administration.
This meteoric rise to become one of the regime’s favored contractors came at a price: the businessman, born in 1990, broke with his father and his brother (both were part of the company), and faces accusations of failing to deliver security equipment for Customs on time, equipment he was supposed to have provided since 2023 under a 3 billion peso contract, as revealed in a report by journalist Nadia Sanders from Latinus.
According to sources very close to this controversial businessman, Jorge Stephan Romita Iturbe’s meteoric career with the 4T (Fourth Transformation) began in the office of Julio Scherer, when he was legal counsel to President López Obrador. Scherer then connected him with the Mexico City government, where he became acquainted with Luz Elena González and Carlos Ulloa, two of Sheinbaum’s most trusted advisors, and at the same time, he put him on the radar of the Secretary of Federal Security, Alfonso Durazo. That was his first major springboard.
He followed Durazo to the governorship of Sonora, and it was there that he began to cultivate a close relationship with AMLO’s Secretary of the Navy, Admiral Rafael Ojeda. Ojeda’s wife and the nephews of the tax-evading fuel thief—the Farías Laguna brothers—are from Sonora.
Ojeda’s son also has ties to the state. This was Romita’s second major springboard: the value of his contracts increased, he became a trusted supplier to the Navy, he entered the security business, and he ended up practically the kingpin of Mexico City’s International Airport, which is controlled by the Navy.
The third major springboard, the one that marked Romita’s “Quantum Leap,” thanks to his benefactor Pepe Merino, was the contract for the Comprehensive Biometric Identification Service, which he received a few days before last Christmas. It was for a maximum amount of 1.2 billion pesos, according to records from the official Compras MX website consulted in December.
Sources: El Imparcial / Azteca Noticias
