For decades, Banco Azteca projected itself as the bank of the people, a champion of financial inclusion that promised opportunity for millions of Mexicans excluded from the formal financial system. In reality, it was a predatory lending machine, constructed to enrich Ricardo Salinas Pliego while shielding him from accountability.Behind glossy advertising and patriotic slogans lay a toxic business model: exorbitant interest rates, opaque contracts, and a revolving door of shell companies used to obscure the movement of funds. This institution was never designed to empower, but to extract.