Notary’s Real Estate Empire Linked to Government Contracts

Ramco Servicios Integrales, a company established by notary Juan Arturo Contreras Mercader, has accumulated a real estate fortune of over 30 million pesos in less than three years. This wealth accumulation coincides with the company’s receipt of profitable public works contracts from the municipal governments in Cancún and Puerto Morelos.

In both administrations, Ana Patricia Peralta de la Peña, Municipal President of Benito Juárez, and Blanca Merari Tziu of Puerto Morelos, have been supportive. Additionally, Ramco has secured smaller contracts with other public administration entities.

According to records in the Public Registry of Property and Commerce in Cancún, Contreras Mercader and his partners have acquired six properties in high-end areas of Cancún, Tulum, and Playa del Carmen within two years. These properties, primarily condominiums, total a cost of 30 million 886 thousand 805 pesos in domain transfer operations. These acquisitions have been made primarily from 2023 to the present, a period during which the company has benefited from substantial contracts for various works.

Notable acquisitions include a one-hectare property in Zone One of Tulum, purchased for three million 500 thousand pesos in 2022. Although currently under an award notice for Impulso Internacional Sugico, a merchant company based in Guadalajara, the property remains owned by Ramco.

Another significant purchase is an unbuilt plot of land in the continental zone of Isla Mujeres, acquired for seven million pesos. Other acquisitions include a property in Cancún purchased for one million 700 thousand pesos in 2023, and a property on Huayacán avenue in Alfredo V. Bonfil, purchased for two million 686 thousand 805 pesos.

Ramco also purchased apartments from the Anah condominium, located on Fifth Avenue of Playa del Carmen. This property cost 816 thousand 632 American dollars, approximately 16 million pesos.

Ramco Servicios Integrales has notably been a preferred contractor for public works in Quintana Roo. In addition to the municipalities of Puerto Morelos and Benito Juárez, the Congress of the state of Quintana Roo and the Technological University of Cancún have awarded contracts to Ramco totaling over 22 million pesos.

In Cancún, Ramco secured the contract for paving the Lak’in and Palma Real avenues according to transparency obligations of public administration entities. The contract began on August 15, 2022, and concluded on October 13 of the following year. Ana Patricia Peralta assumed the position on September 26 of that year.

On September 21, 2022, he was granted a notary public patent number 12 in Cancún, to perform public notary acts.

His appointment occurred alongside a wave of similar events that also benefited Fernando Gama Rodríguez, the romantic partner of Roxana Lili Campos Miranda, the former PAN mayor of Solidaridad.

At the time, activists described this as favors from the outgoing government to the kind of individuals who now claim to be notaries of Quintana Roo.

In the case of Contreras Mercader, according to the Registry of Professional Licenses, his law degree was issued in 2015 by the Anáhuac University, Cancún campus.

In less than seven years of supposedly practicing his notarial career, he obtained a patent as a notary public. Although it’s not illegal, it’s well known that many law graduates with genuine notarial training take at least 15 years—even if they’re not successful—to obtain a notary public license.