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By Anthony Esposito and Ana Isabel Martinez
MEXICO CITY, May 28 (Reuters) - Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador made his boldest move yet to root out entrenched corruption by going after one of his predecessor's closest aides, a former chief of state oil firm Pemex, for alleged bribery, tax fraud and other crimes.
The target, Emilio Lozoya, headed Pemex from 2012 to 2016 and ran former president Enrique Pena Nieto's election campaign.
The case is the first high-profile corruption investigation launched by Lopez Obrador against the government he replaced on Dec. 1 after a landslide victory.
The Finance Ministry's money-laundering czar Santiago Nieto said in an interview on Tuesday that the Financial Intelligence Unit he leads presented the attorney general's office with three charges against Lozoya related to "acts of corruption" committed when he was at the helm of Pemex.
Citing sources at the attorney general's office, government-owned news agency Notimex said a judge had ordered the arrest of Emilio Lozoya, who headed Pemex from 2012 to 2016.
Nieto, the attorney general's office and even Lozoya's lawyer, Javier Coello, could not confirm if an arrest warrant had been issued.
However, authorities raided Lozoya's home in a high-end Mexico City neighborhood on Tuesday night, Coello told TV network Milenio. Lozoya was not home, or at his father's house, which was also raided, Coello said.
The attorney general's office said that Alonso Ancira, the chairman of steelmaker Altos Hornos de Mexico, which sold an out-of-service fertilizer plant to Pemex for about $475 million while Lozoya was chief executive, was detained in Spain by Interpol for his alleged involvement in "a series of crimes that gravely hurt" Pemex.
It added that more arrests were likely.
On Monday, the finance ministry said it had blocked accounts belonging to Lozoya and to AHMSA for allegedly carrying out illegal financial operations.
LINKS TO ODEBRECHT
Nieto said the case also had links to Brazilian builder Odebrecht, whose executives have testified about bribes to politicians across Latin America.
"One of the charges is related to payments that Mr. Lozoya received from resources that come first from Altos Hornos de Mexico to an Odebrecht subsidiary and then from Odebrecht to his relatives," said Nieto.
"This leads to various operations, including in real estate," he added.
Non-government organization Mexicans Against Corruption said Lozoya bought a 1,165-square-meter (12,540-square-ft) home in the upscale Mexico City neighborhood of Las Lomas for $2.9 million, the same amount he and his sister were allegedly wired in Dec. 2012 from Switzerland by Odebrecht.