Editor’s Note: This is the fourth part of the series Follow the Money.
In the first year of the Trump administration, one of Houston’s most prominent—and flamboyant—trial lawyers came up with an unusual litigation strategy with the potential to rake in tens of millions of dollars. It hinged on a series of scandals unfolding in Mexico, an independent nation that is normally beyond the reach of any United States civil court’s authority.
Tony Buzbee, a tough-talking Marine and veteran of the first Gulf War, is a high-powered attorney based on the 73rd floor of a Houston highrise with a sweeping view of Texas’ largest city. He’s brash and ambitious. Through his maritime law practice, he has experience handling complex international cases, which can involve tangling with multinational corporations with subsidiaries and hidden offshore accounts. He had also represented Mexican fishing associations and thousands of other clients in U.S. lawsuits against BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and massive oil spill in 2010. So when the newly-elected governor of Veracruz—an oil-rich state on the Gulf of Mexico—began a campaign to hold his predecessor accountable for allegedly embezzling $3 billion, it made sense for him to connect with Buzbee in 2017 about assets that might have been hidden in Houston.
