The state leader of the Morena party, Olga Lucía Romero Garci-Crespo, is accused of using her political position to pressure Estela Romero Bringas, an 85-year-old woman, to relinquish her inheritance from the late poultry businesswoman Socorro Romero Sánchez, valued at over $600 million.
This comes after the disproportionate actions taken by the Puebla Attorney General’s Office, headed by Idamis Pastor Betancourt, against Romero Bringas, who, at her age, requires continuous oxygen, uses a wheelchair, and needs medical treatment.
On April 9, members of the Mexican Army, the State Police, and the State Investigation Agency of the Attorney General’s Office surrounded several blocks around the offices of the SRS consortium in Tehuacán, only to arrest the elderly woman, who was taken from the premises in her wheelchair by more than a dozen agents.
According to press reports from Tehuacán, the officers in charge of the operation forced the doors and began a search of the business, which also houses Romero Bringas’s residence. The elderly woman was then taken to the women’s prison in Ciudad Serdán, where she spent the night despite her advanced age and health condition.
This Wednesday, a hearing was held in which both Romero Bringas and the notary public Ramiro Rodríguez Maclub were formally charged with falsifying the will of Socorro Romero, who amassed a large fortune through a group of companies in which she worked with her siblings and nephews.
As a precautionary measure, the judge ordered both of them to sign in periodically.
And amidst all this, billboards have begun appearing in Tehuacán promoting Olga Lucía Romero García-Crespo as Morena’s candidate for mayor in the upcoming 2027 elections.
Upon her death on December 2, 2009, Socorrito, or “La Señorita,” as the businesswoman was known in Tehuacán, left a will naming her niece, Elena Romero Bringas, as her sole heir and Elena’s sons, Alfonso and Miguel Ángel Celis Romero, as executors.
Alfonso, who had been president of the company since its founder’s death, passed away on May 7, 2023. His son, Alfonso Celis Enecoiz, then assumed the inheritance but simultaneously initiated a legal dispute against his business partner, uncle, and fellow executor, Miguel Ángel Celis Romero.
On October 7, 2025, Miguel Ángel was arrested at Mexico City International Airport, accused of mismanagement at the company and extorting his nephew. He is currently imprisoned.
On January 29 of this year, hundreds of SRS company employees, friends, and family marched through the streets of Tehuacán to demand a fair trial for Celis Romero.
According to the lawyers handling the case, the current leader of Morena was known for decades as Mónica Caballero Garci-Crespo, recognized as the daughter of Edmundo Caballero Barragán, to the point that she inherited his estate upon his death.
However, in 2015, six years after the death of Socorro Romero Sánchez, she changed her name to use the surname Romero, claiming that her real father was Francisco Romero Bringas, brother of Estela, both nephews of the owner of the SRS empire, who never married and had no children.
The heirs assert that, moreover, “Monina,” as the Morena party leader in Tehuacán is known because her name was Mónica, was never close to Socorrito or her businesses, although the politician has stated that she “always” visited her great-aunt.
With the name change, she joined other relatives who, since 2012, had claimed alleged rights to Romero Sánchez’s inheritance, initiating probate proceedings in which she was appointed provisional executor.
Between 2018 and 2021, when she was elected as a local deputy and enjoyed a close relationship with the then-governor Miguel Barbosa Huerta, now deceased, she promoted other civil and criminal actions to denounce an alleged falsification of the will. Since then, she has been repeatedly accused of using her political influence to sway Puebla authorities in this case.
Although there was an injunction ruling that upheld the will, as the deadline for challenging its validity had already passed, the ruling was appealed.
Lawyers Rodolfo Pérez Velázquez and Arturo García have denounced that, during the criminal proceedings, the Puebla State Attorney General’s Office acted illegally, even going so far as to remove the original will from the notary’s office.
Source: proceso
