 Sergio Cicero, a lawyer who had been responsible for obtaining those permits and was bitter about being passed over for the position of general counsel with Walmart México provided the company's corporate general counsel's office with evidence showing that the company had made large payments to "gestores", workers who deal with bureaucracies on behalf of citizens and businesses, with coded indications that the money was being passed on to officials to expedite permits.Company officials hired a veteran FBI agent to conduct a preliminary inquiry, instead of hiring an outside law firm as it usually did for major inquiries, such as a similar one in 2003 which found that Walmart México had been helping high-volume customers evade that country's sales taxes.The special investigative team found evidence corroborating almost all of Cicero's allegations, and evidence suggesting that the bribery had been even more extensive, including $16 million in "donations" to local politicians and their organizations.