Eva Cadena Sandoval is a Mexican politician that belonged to the

MORENA Morena or MORENA may refer to: Places * Morena, Madhya Pradesh, a town in central India * Morena (Lok Sabha constituency), Madhya Pradesh * Morena (Vidhan Sabha constituency), Madhya Pradesh * Morena, San Diego, California, a neighborhood * Mo ...

party. She gained national infamy when hidden videos were released of her taking money that she alleged was for party funding. She subsequently became known on

social media Social media are interactive technologies that facilitate the Content creation, creation, information exchange, sharing and news aggregator, aggregation of Content (media), content (such as ideas, interests, and other forms of expression) amongs ...

as La Recaudadora (The Collector).

Early life

Cadena was born in

Tlalmanalco Tlalmanalco is a municipality located in the far south-eastern part of the State of Mexico. The municipal seat and second largest town in the municipality is the town of Tlalmanalco de Velázquez The name is from the Nahuatl language, meaning “f ...

Estado de México The State of Mexico, officially just Mexico, is one of the 32 federal entities of the United Mexican States. Colloquially known as Edomex (from , the abbreviation of , and ), to distinguish it from the name of the whole country, it is the mos ...

, and moved to

Las Choapas Las Choapas is a city and its surrounding municipality in the southeastern extremes of the Mexican state of Veracruz. It is bordered by the municipalities of Uxpanapa, Minatitlán, Moloacán, and Agua Dulce in Veracruz, Huimanguillo in Tabasco, ...

Veracruz Veracruz, formally Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Veracruz de Ignacio de la Llave, is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the 32 Political divisions of Mexico, Federal Entit ...

, at age 7.

Career

Cadena Sandoval began her career with a short-lived step by the ranks of the PRI in the early 2000s, but was expelled for not covering her quotas and began to perform political work in the ranks of (PAN) National Action alongside Antonio Pouchoulen and Renato Tronco, from 2005 to 2013. With Morena, at 2016 she was a deputy in the state congress of Veracruz. She was a candidate for the mayorship of

, but her candidacy was revoked by the party following the scandal of the hidden videos.

Scandal

A first video, published on April 24, 2017, shows Cadena taking $500,000

Mexican pesos The Mexican peso (Currency symbol, symbol: $; ISO 4217, currency code: MXN; also abbreviated Mex$ to distinguish it from peso, other peso-denominated currencies; referred to as the peso, Mexican peso, or colloquially varo) is the official curre ...

from a woman whose face is not visible, with the money supposedly going to MORENA leader

Andrés Manuel López Obrador Andrés Manuel López Obrador (; born 13 November 1953), also known by his initials AMLO, is a Mexican former politician, political scientist, public administrator and writer who served as the 65th president of Mexico from 2018 to 2024. He se ...

. In regards to this video, López Obrador said it was a "trick" released to slander and politically destroy the party. Cadena claimed López Obrador did not know about the money and that she returned all of it. A second video, published on April 27, 2017, shows Cadena taking from the same woman $10,000

US dollars The United States dollar (symbol: $; currency code: USD) is the official currency of the United States and several other countries. The Coinage Act of 1792 introduced the U.S. dollar at par with the Spanish silver dollar, divided it int ...

and $50,000 Mexican pesos, supposedly "for her campaign". The woman offers an additional $5,000,000 pesos for López Obrador but would like to meet him in person, to which Cadena responds that she will tell "them". She claimed this video was recorded when she went to return the money. The videos were leaked to the national newspaper '' El Universal'' which subsequently published them. In an interview with the newspaper, Cadena claimed that the videos were altered and that she had asked the Attorney General of Veracruz to seek security videos from the hotel in which the transactions took place to find those responsible for the hidden videos. The '' Fiscalía Especializada para la Atención de Delitos Electorales'' (FEPADE) opened an investigation on Cadena's presumed misconduct. A third video published by ''El Universal'' on May 2, 2017, shows Cadena receiving $1,000,000 pesos from a supposed businessman as payment for her pushing for a favorable law in the Veracruz state congress. The day before the third leak, Cadena stated she would step down to face charges, that the videos were altered and that she would release the names of those involved. The same day the video was released, she failed to attend a scheduled meeting with FEPADE. The actions in the third video may constitute additional crimes that are outside of FEPADE jurisdiction and would require investigation from other agencies.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cadena, Eva Morena (political party) politicians Political corruption Politicians from Veracruz 21st-century Mexican women politicians