The controversial history of Raúl Rocha, the Miss Universe owner under investigation for links to organized crime

Raúl Rocha Cantú, the controversial magnate who owns the Miss Universe pageant, has once again come under scrutiny from authorities with an investigation launched by the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime (FEMDO). But this is not the first time Rocha has been the subject of the authorities’ interest. The businessman, with a lavish track record in the corporate world and in the import and export of hydrocarbons in Mexico, is wanted for his involvement in a fuel, weapons, and drug smuggling ring originating in Guatemala that connects him to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Mexico City-based cartel La Unión Tepito. An arrest warrant has been issued, which he has rejected without providing any explanation for the charges brought against him. He has so far avoided arrest through an alleged agreement with the prosecution to become a protected witness. In 2011, he left Mexico after the tragedy at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, which left 52 people dead in a fire started by organized crime.

Today, the investigation opened against him alleges, according to the Mexican daily Milenio, that he funneled illicit profits from fuel smuggling from Guatemala — where he served as honorary consul until last Thursday — into his companies. He also used these funds to pay an intermediary who provided him with information about the very investigations being conducted against him by the federal prosecutor’s office specializing in organized crime. The case file is bolstered by wiretapped phone conversations among his associates. Court documents obtained by this newspaper show that, along with Rocha, there are 12 other individuals involved, including police officers and officials from the Attorney General’s Office (FGR).

Raúl Rocha Cantú’s foray into the hydrocarbons industry began in 2017, and within three years he had obtained permits from Mexican authorities to import and export fuels. Just seven years after entering the sector, and already with a consolidated role, an investigation against him began. He started by founding a service station in Monterrey with two partners to sell gasoline and diesel supplied by Pemex. A year later, he established BSE Combustibles, a gasoline distribution and marketing company with government authorization to operate in Mexico. During the pandemic, he made the leap to broader energy corporations, most of them based in his hometown. Latin America Energy Group and Global Solutions Energy Group, both established in 2020, allowed him to import and export fuels. Expansión 2000 served for the construction of energy production facilities and pipelines, with clients such as Pemex, according to its portfolio, and he replicated the model in Panama with Orbison Energy.

During those years, he began to reappear in the public eye — having stepped back from the spotlight after the Casino Royale tragedy — at meetings to promote trade agreements. He posed for a photo with former Brazilian president Michel Temer during a discussion about expanding bilateral relations and was appointed Honorary Consul of Guatemala in the State of Mexico in 2021, based in Toluca. That same year, he also began working as a representative of the private sector on the Board of Directors of the Tamaulipas Energy Commission and as president of the Business Coordinating Council. The ghosts of Casino Royale were beginning to fade. Now established back in Mexico, he was appointed vice president of relations with business organizations of the National Chamber of Commerce of Mexico City (Canaco).

Rocha owns a conglomerate of companies spanning entertainment, gambling, aviation, industrial materials, and real estate, as well as hydrocarbon distribution and transportation. He began his career in Monterrey, his birthplace, working for his mother in the local family business. After graduating with a degree in business administration, he became a shareholder and CEO of Cymsa, an industrial hose manufacturing and exporting company, at just 21 years old, according to his business biography. From there, he expanded his interests, starting with the casino and online gaming industry. One of his first ventures was Casino Royale in 2007, which four years later would become the bloody scene of one of the worst civilian tragedies of Felipe Calderón’s war on drugs.

On August 25, 2011, an armed group stormed the casino in Monterrey. They began shooting and robbing people inside the building, while others doused the place with gasoline canisters. The opulent casino had been targeted by extortion threats and robberies in the past, but this time the criminals — members of the Los Zetas cartel — crossed the line into an attack. Casino Royale was engulfed in flames, while customers and employees suffocated from carbon monoxide poisoning inside, or were trampled by the terrified crowd trying unsuccessfully to escape through the emergency exits, which, according to survivor testimonies, were locked. The final death toll was 52, including a pregnant woman.

In the days that followed, survivors and relatives of the victims demanded that authorities investigate the owners of the establishment, including Rocha. A woman who managed to escape recounted how the criminals pointed guns at people and warned them that if they didn’t leave, they would be killed right there. Amid the panic, people crowded around the doorways, which were either too small for evacuation or simply locked. The then-mayor of Monterrey, Fernando Larrazábal, told the press that Casino Royale lacked the necessary municipal civil protection permits.

It was then that authorities demanded Rocha appear in court to answer for his actions, but he had already left Mexico amid the investigation and the families’ demands. In a letter to civil society in Nuevo León, the businessman asserted from exile that he too was a victim, not a criminal. “I offer a sincere apology to everyone. But the reasons that led me to leave the country before any summons was issued, and after completing the immigration procedures like any other Mexican citizen, are easy to understand: the well-founded fear that my life would be threatened,” he wrote in the document. At the end of that year, a judge issued an arrest warrant against him for alleged violation of the Federal Gaming Law, but he never responded to it.

He spent the following years in the United States, where he continued to build businesses and live with his family. From there, he ventured into real estate, restaurants, and the heavy machinery and construction industries. He even founded the Asociación Niños Mujeres Ancianos Protegidos A.C. (Association for the Protection of Children, Women, and the Elderly) to guarantee access to prosthetics and medications for the most vulnerable sectors of the population. Despite the Casino Royale tragedy, he never abandoned the industry and continued operating gambling establishments in Mexico. The profits allowed him to acquire a $12 million mansion in Miami, as documented by several real estate magazines.

Back on top, he decided to go big and acquire — through his firm Legacy Holding Group — 50% of the Miss Universe televised beauty pageant, just before Mexico was to host the 2024 competition. In the last edition, viewers applauded Rocha’s words when he came to the defense of Fátima Bosch, the Mexican participant, after she was reprimanded by the pageant’s vice president for the eastern region, Nawat Itsaragrisil, during a ceremony in Thailand. “That’s enough, Nawat,” Rocha declared angrily in a video. When Bosch won the crown, accusations of rigging quickly surfaced after two judges resigned. It then came to light that Rocha had signed a contract in 2023 with Pemex, the state-owned oil company where Bernardo Bosch, the winner’s father, has been an executive for 35 years. He denied the allegations in a letter and claimed that he had only met Rocha on September 13, when the Miss Universe Mexico final was held in Guadalajara.

The suspicion of a conspiracy reached even President Claudia Sheinbaum, who dismissed the rumors as ridiculous. However, the controversy finally erupted this week with the prosecutor’s arrest warrant for Rocha. The investigation, of which more and more details are emerging, indicates that the businessman is at the top of a smuggling network that moved fuel in tanker trucks from Chiapas and Tabasco to Querétaro, and supplied weapons to members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Querétaro and La Unión Tepito in Mexico City.

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