Hundreds of buyers from Grupo Inverco México, a real estate company based in Merida, Yucatan, accused the firm of committing a fraud worth over $50 million pesos by failing to deliver hundreds of properties and houses as agreed upon in the Pedregales de Misnebalam development, 12 kilometers north of the capital city.
“This is a mega-fraud that affects hundreds of innocent buyers who trusted a project sold to them during the real estate boom in Yucatan, thanks to federal government investments in the region,” said Carolina del Carmen Mora Cázares, a Mexican resident of Ohio, US, who invested over $80,000 (1.6 million pesos) in Misnebalam since 2021.
Mora added that Inverco México’s “criminal behavior” not only harms its clients but also tarnishes the international image of Yucatan and Mexico.
Therefore, she demands immediate intervention from the Yucatecan government and the federal administration led by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, to whom she will convey the details of what she calls another “Real Estate Cartel.”
Other complainants say they will address their grievances to Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo, the virtual president-elect; Mauricio Vila Dosal, the state governor; the local and federal congresses; the Yucatecan Attorney General’s Office through its Specialized Unit for Combating Corruption; and the Federal Consumer Protection Agency (PROFECO).
The aim is to recover their money and halt the “criminal arrogance,” abuse of power, simulation, cynicism, and mistreatment allegedly applied by Inverco shareholders against their clients.
In December 2018, Miguel Ángel Aguayo de Pau and Rolando Alberto Bello Mejía founded Grupo Inverco México as a collective investment company (Sociedad Anónima Promotora de Inversión de Capital Variable). Both acted as co-presidents of the firm. However, when the problems began to emerge, they blamed the “poor management” of Aguayo de Pau.
To everyone’s surprise, the founder reappeared on June 28 in a Zoom video conference as an external advisor to Inverco, announcing that Pedregales de Misnebalam was facing financial difficulties and introducing two bank trust agreements to resolve the crisis. This came after repeated failures to deliver properties or return capital: at least $1.1 million per buyer.
Aguayo de Pau is a real estate entrepreneur who lectures on YouTube about “ethics,” “excellence,” and “professionalism” in property sales, but he presented himself as if he were the true president of Inverco. He did not allow any questions from the concerned clients during the 20-minute conference.
Additionally, according to complaints made by dissatisfied customers on Facebook and supported by real estate advisors, Rolando Alberto Bello appeared at a shareholders’ meeting in Progreso last month, as a notary public with a seat in that city. He allegedly ordered the complete arrangement of the conflict.
Bello is the nephew of former Governor Rolando Zapata Bello, who was accused by governor Mauricio Vila Dosal of committing 31 illegal acts during his tenure, including diversion of resources and other financial irregularities worth $533 million pesos. The allegations were dropped after the Prianista party formed an electoral alliance with the PAN in Yucatan.
The Federal Auditor’s Office (ASF) also filed a penal complaint against the former governor for allegedly diverting federal funds: 33 million, 530 thousand, and 600 pesos. The investigation status is unknown to date.
Currently, brothers William Armando and Rubén Rodrigo Morales Heredia head the Board of Directors of Inverco, with William as president and Rubén as secretary, according to a notarized document filed at the Yucatán Public Registry of Commerce on April 4. This is one of several business documents owned by 4 Vientos.
The first brother, according to complainants, refuses to answer phone calls and text messages from clients seeking to resolve conflicts through negotiation. The second brother is unwilling to sign or comply with addendums (agreements) related to relocation offered by Pedregales de Misnébalam to those who want to maintain a business relationship with the company.
Furthermore, neither brother delivers nor signs contracts for rescission and capital return to those who do not wish to pursue further dealings with the real estate company. In addition, clients who demand reimbursement of their money claim that the company includes a deceitful clause in the rescission agreements, effectively accusing the buyer of non-compliance due to “economic problems” caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Other board members of Inverco include Eyder Efrén Martín Chan and Eduardo Ignacio Manzanilla Masqueff. Both have been mentioned in media reports as part of another real estate group, CM Capital, S.A. de C.V., which allegedly seized 214 hectares from Jesús Aldana Martínez in the municipality of Umán (Kanasín), Yucatán.
Aldana Martínez, an elderly man over 83 years old, identified the current Inverco shareholders as accomplices, along with Víctor Alejandro Paredes Aguilar, in a scheme that tricked him out of his property for a supposed payment of $21 million. “They convinced me to sign over my deeds to regularize 8 cadastral keys from the plot,” Aldana Martínez said. “Alejandro Paredes posed as my proxy and sold the 214 hectares to CM Capital for $21,433,000. I only realized this a year and a half later when I went to pay the property tax in June 2012.”
These individuals, including Alejandro Paredes, disappeared after perpetrating the scam. Aldana Martínez never received the millions of pesos promised as compensation for his lost property.
This is just one of many cases of real estate frauds and seizures in Yucatán over the past six years. In June 2023, Carlos Alonso Iracheta Carrol, president of the National Institute of Sustainable Soil, declared that the problem of real estate fraud had become so severe in Mérida and its northern municipalities that it was now considered “the capital of speculation in Mexico.”
Iván Cervera, vice-president of the Mexican Association of Real Estate Professionals (UNIFER), pointed out that a lack of professionalism among some developers has led to substandard construction, delayed delivery times, and inadequate after-sales services. A study by “Uno Consulting” concluded in 2021 that there are no natural or legal boundaries limiting the sale of lots in Yucatán.
Despite these findings, government authorities have failed to address this issue, and local media outlets have not managed to raise public awareness or prompt official action. Regional newspapers have published at least 45 cases of real estate frauds and seizures in Yucatán over the past decade, resulting in losses estimated at around $5 billion for ejidatarios (communal landowners) and buyers from various countries.
These crimes occurred in several municipalities across Yucatán, including Progreso, Conkal, Motul, Baca, Dzemul, Chicxulub Pueblo, Río Lagarto, Telchac Pueblo, Dzilam, Sinanché, Celestúm, and Hunucmá. Millions of buyers from Mexico and abroad have been lured by scammers who promote the image of Yucatán as a peaceful, tranquil, beautiful, culturally rich, historically significant, secure, and economically growing state.
The magnitude of the problem was highlighted last June when the Housing Commission of the Federal Chamber of Deputies, headed by Deputy Lilia Aguilar Gil, held a forum in Mérida on real estate fraud in the state.
She described this corrupt practice as “pure and hard speculation” and emphasized: “It’s a crime and it must be attacked.”
Apparently, the electoral process overshadowed the agenda of the deputy and her colleagues, as they have not reported what they have done or plan to do to “attack” this ominous crime.
Fernando Alcocer Ávila, a former legislator from Mérida, also considered in April 2022 that the local Congress should review and update the state’s Inland Development Law immediately, as well as the part related to municipalities, because the norm was exceeded by the delinquent acts committed and still being committed by private individuals and corrupt officials.
” Selling is not illegal, but how did we get to dividing (irregular lots)? There are laws that prohibit it and authorize it; then, it’s a matter of corruption,” he stated in the newspaper ¡PorEsto!
He also explained the modus operandi of lotteries and land developers, which now suffer from buyers in Pedregales de Misnébalam.
“They demand prompt payment of installments for a lot, house or condominium, or else they apply severe penalties that include canceling the contract and keeping all the client’s investment.”
He added: “But they take their time to do the paperwork for possession or division of lots, as well as indefinitely delaying the physical delivery and notarized (deeds) transfer of the properties to the buyers in 2019.”
The government of Yucatán has been accused of complicity with Inverco and Aguayo de Pau’s business dealings. In March 2023, it was reported that Aguayo purchased a large tract of land from two elderly septuagenarians for $6,791,000.
Aguayo proposed selling the property to customers who had problems with Misnébalam by offering them 2,500 lots in the same area at half a million pesos each. This would be 181 times more than what Aguayo paid for the land just 15 months earlier.
The government of Yucatán has announced that it was working on updating the legal framework for the inland development sector in Mérida and its surroundings since April 2022, but as of July 2, 2024, no changes have been implemented. The government’s Institute of Housing (IVEY) claims to be revising laws related to Urban Development, Human Settlements, Residential Subdivisions, Condominiums, New Developments, and Water Supply, which does not exist in the state.
However, the state secretariats for Public Works, Planning and Evaluation, Administration and Finance, and Economic Development and Employment claim that it is another entity’s responsibility to provide with information on the status of Inverco’s dealings with the government of Yucatán. This includes 14 documents and legal procedures that Inverco should have fulfilled before selling lots and condominiums in 2019.
The report also raises questions about the complicity of Aguayo de Pau and Inverco in the alleged real estate scam, which has affected many people who invested their money with Misnébalam.
They knew but pretended
Meanwhile, in two groups operating on social media, buyers from various states of the republic, as well as American, European, Central and South American countries (ranging from 700 to 1,200), express their discontent, discomfort, and anxiety about the company’s “unethical” and “professional” behavior, or even “fraudulent”.
They claim that problems began when they bought properties in 2022 without being notified by the company and its real estate advisors about serious administrative and financial problems that the company had due to a supposed “intempestive” change in municipal borders, passing the zone of the Mérida municipality’s fraccionamiento to Progreso.
However, clients and advisors say that Inverco’s shareholders and employees repeatedly told them that it was “Engineer Aguayo’s bad administration” that caused the failure, which is why the entrepreneur supposedly left the company.
Starting in May 2023, Inverco began massively failing to deliver paid houses to customers, which annulled the clauses of the contract for purchase-promise on behalf of the company.
It wasn’t until early 2024 when employees of the “Attention to Clients” department started calling buyers who were about to receive their homes or had been waiting several months that delivery would be until 2025, 2026, or even later.
We know that only a few dozen houses have been delivered; most construction is incomplete; dozens of clients have paid but no work has been done on compacting in their lands; not all have public services promised, nor can they be written due to omissions administrative and management imputable to the company.
But Aguayo said that this month (July) 50 “houses” will be delivered, although he didn’t specify the delivery dates. He also stated that the land sold is there, but without public services, waiting for a bureaucratic procedure: writing it in the name of new owners!
Later, he informed the four possible solutions analyzed by Inverco’s shareholders unilaterally:
1) Generating income through new developments
2) Reselling properties that no longer interest clients
3) Obtaining real estate loans
4) Having the company’s customers support by promoting new developments that will generate income to comply with labor obligations.
As the company did not consult or listen to its customers’ opinions or suggestions, it rejected the most just and honest action: requesting real estate loans guaranteed by payment from multiple valuable properties.
It decided on its own to create two bank trust funds (one of administration and another of guarantee and payment) that some clients believe will be unembargable if they were created as irrevocable, and the fideicomitente (the company transferring assets and property to the bank trustee) is not the sole beneficiary.
Aguayo said that the trusts will feed on the sale of 2,500 lots, with an average value of $500,000 each, from the Rancho Káaxnah, which is located 50 minutes west of Mérida, en route to Celestún. These trust deeds will be effective once clients decide to sign them.
However, the controversial engineer did not take even a minute to apologize or ask for forgiveness on behalf of the shareholders of Inverco, the real estate consortium he founded, for the emotional, patrimonial and moral damage caused by their questionable conduct.
It’s either you accept it or leave it
The proposal of Aguayo, who is presented as an “external advisor,” and the shareholders of Inverco, is the classic “take it or leave it.”
Clients only have three options:
A.- Accept and continue with the delivery of condominiums or lots.
B.- Request, for a second time, the return of their capital.
C.- Register in a list of clients who will demand compensation from the company.
Many buyers consider the last option to be an insult because the company cannot manage or know about the complaints or lawsuits that may be filed against it.
For now, Inverco has opened a period of appointments, which can be done online, starting on last July 2, so that clients can register for one of the options and receive individualized attention. The appointment period will close in September of this year, regardless of whether the client knew about or applied the measures imposed by the company to negotiate.
Indignation
The response from consumers was immediate on Facebook and Whatsapp groups. Here is a summary of some comments from affected clients:
1.- A man living in Mérida, Yucatán:
“This Mr. Aguayo, who’s past his prime, is leaving a bad reputation for all the real estate businesses in Mérida. And to top it off, his solution is to help himself and Inverco promote a new project! It’s unbelievable that we, the affected parties, have to help him!”
“He also emphasizes not posting negative comments on social media because it would hurt their interests. But he assures us that very soon, in about 3 years, the issue of Pedregales de Misébalan will be resolved. It’s a shame that this man and his company lack tact.”
2.- Another client commented:
“How is it possible that if Aguayo left Pedregales de Misnébalam due to poor management, he’s now in charge of Rancho Káaxnah, a project we’re all supposedly dependent on for our PdM? How can they have such audacity?”
3.- A Chihuahua resident warned:
“If someone accepts the trust deed, they will have to sign a new agreement, which means giving up our only contract, the Promesa de Compraventa. It’s signed and notarized with clear dates (now Aguayo has provided evidence that the default is attributable to Inverco, not us). We need to find a reliable lawyer or law firm to represent us.
“Aguayo is a hard-nosed person who wants to keep us subsidizing his projects for 2-3 more years (which could go up to 4-5 years) while we’re trying to get our money back. He wants to turn each of us into promoters of Inverco’s real estate projects to attract other unsuspecting people.
“Friends, friends: wherever you are in the country or even abroad, you can file a complaint with PROFECO (Federal Consumer Protection Agency). A client who lives in the US has already done so online and received excellent attention. I’ll file my complaint in Chihuahua and attach Aguayo’s Zoom video as evidence of Inverco’s responsibility.
“Remember that with at least 30 clients, we can initiate a Collective Action with Profeco (a collective complaint), which has more weight. Other denunciations from different cities and countries can be added to this one.”
When they create a trust, the Fiduciary (Inverco in this case) puts its assets into it. The Trustee (the person managing the trust) then manages those assets for the benefit of others. In this case, the trust appears to be used to avoid financial obligations and provide false promises to customers.
Customers are being misled
* A customer who was promised a house in July 2023 received an email with a video showing the house at 95% completion, but when they went to receive it, the house did not have a street or a front door.
* Another customer paid their last monthly payment and is still waiting for construction to begin on their home.
* A homeowner who has already received their home found that it was delivered with numerous problems, including no electricity in some areas.
Concerns about delivery of homes without services
* Only one single-family home has been completed, but even this home does not have a working entrance gate or second layer of pavement.
* Some homes are still missing basic amenities like electricity and running water.
* Homeowners cannot sell or rent their properties because they do not meet the required standards.
Customers demand refunds
* Many customers feel that Inverco has been dishonest with them, making false promises about when their homes would be completed and delivered.
* Customers are demanding refunds for their down payments and asking for help in getting out of their contracts.
* Some customers are considering reporting Inverco to the authorities due to the company’s apparent failure to provide the promised services.
Key concerns
* Inverco is using a trust to avoid financial obligations.
* The company has made false promises about when homes would be delivered and completed.
* Homeowners are being misled about the condition of their properties, which do not meet basic standards for living.
* Customers are demanding refunds and asking for help in getting out of their contracts.
A Special Case
In our case, we were supposed to receive our home in March 2023, along with the three months of grace period mentioned in our contract. However, we were only notified that our home was ready for delivery in July 2023. In this arbitrary situation, who has the right to decide whether or not to accept their home in its current state? It is their absolute and irreducible right to do so.
Against Arrogance and Cynicism, Unity
Despite some customers’ concerns that the pressure on the company might lead to bankruptcy, many clients have started a movement of unity. After Aguayo’s announcement, this movement has been growing.
Clients from Yucatan, other states in Mexico, and even foreign countries are presenting their complaints at PROFECO, which provides free advice for customers facing non-compliant real estate companies.
PROFECO OBLIGATIONS
Those who have already filed their complaints at PROFECO reported to 4vientos that Inmobiliary company evaded what is stipulated in the Mexican Official Standard (NOM) 247-SE-2021, which requires real estate companies to register all contracts with customers, including compulsory and voluntary ones, on the PROFECO database. This is to prevent them from using illegal or disadvantageous clauses against consumers.
Collective Action
We are hoping to gather a minimum of 30 affected clients to convert our individual complaints into a collective action that Profeco will present in a civil court in Mérida. This will also represent significant savings on legal costs.
Carolina Mora expressed her frustration, stating: “Many of those affected, including elderly people, have invested their entire patrimony in this real estate project. I’m talking about pension funds, bank credits, family loans, pensions, and even their retirement savings… everything, because we were sold a false dream by these criminals.”
This article was originally published on Escuela de Periodismo
TYT Newsroom
