The Family Tree That Wouldn't Behave

The Paper Trail, Part 4 of 7

On April 15, 2021, a website called Yo Amo Tijuana ran a short profile of a young boxing-shoe maker. The headline:

"Sobrino de alcaldesa de Tecate, creador de los zapatos de Antony Joshua y otros grandes boxeadores."

Nephew of Tecate's mayor, maker of the shoes worn by Anthony Joshua and other great boxers.

The article called him Carlos Adams, 27, from a Tecate family, in business since 2015. Same brand, same story, same man who ran for mayor of Yuma this year.

Nephew of Tecate's mayor. That's a big thing to put in a headline. The article doesn't say which mayor, doesn't name his parents, has no byline and no source. It just says it.

So I went to Tecate's records to see if it holds up.

The mayor

The headline uses "alcaldesa," the feminine word for mayor. In April 2021, Tecate's elected mayor was a woman: Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra, elected for 2019 to 2021, later listed among Baja California's federal deputies.

Adams Pereyra. Keep that name in your head.

Her term wasn't quiet. On Oct. 21, 2020, state agents came to Tecate City Hall to arrest her on a contempt warrant, and almost 100 of her own city police officers barricaded the doors for four hours to stop them. Five months later, a judge ordered her to stand trial over an alleged diversion of millions of pesos withheld from city workers' pay. She called both cases political persecution. The full story is in Tecate's Deadliest Years.

At a 2019 campaign event, she told a local outlet: "Mi padre, Carlos Adams, también fue madrugador." My father, Carlos Adams, was also an early riser.

Her father was a Carlos Adams.

The man in Tecate

Remember the house from Part 3? Bought in 2000 by a Carlos G. Adams, the man I believe is the candidate's father.

In Tecate's property and court records, there's a man named Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra.

Carlos Gil, the exact first and middle names on the candidate's trademarks. Adams Pereyra, the exact last names of Tecate's former mayor.

In a 2018 Tecate probate record, he inherits from an estate, and the woman handling it calls him "su hermano." Her brother. In 2024, a Tecate court gives him title to a piece of land.

Now line it up:

• Carlos Adams of Tecate, the former mayor's father.
• His children, including Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra, the mayor, and Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra.
• Carlos Gil, as Carlos G. Adams, buys a house in Yuma in 2000.
• His son, Carlos Gil Adams, sells boxing shoes, runs his mail through that house, and runs for mayor of Yuma.

Which would make the candidate exactly what that 2021 headline called him. The mayor's nephew.

My opinion: that's the family. It fits too well to be a coincidence. I've treated the Yuma deed's Carlos G. Adams and Tecate's Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra as the same man since Oct. 4.

What's proven and what isn't

Now the part where I tell you what I can't prove.

Proven: the brother-and-sister relationship in the 2018 Tecate probate record. "Su hermano." That's the only family tie in this tree a record spells out.

Not proven: that the former mayor is Carlos Gil's sister. They share both last names and her father was a Carlos Adams. No record we have says it.

Not proven: that Tecate's Carlos Gil is the Yuma deed's Carlos G. Arizona court records do show a Carlos G. Adams born in November 1965, with Tecate and Yuma as his cities, in two traffic cases. Right age for a father. No second last name, nothing that nails it down.

Not proven: that the man on the deed is the candidate's father.

Not proven: that the candidate is the mayor's nephew, beyond that one headline.

Every one of those "not proven" lines could be closed by one man. He's been asked.

The closest Adams has come to saying it himself came on Facebook.

On Oct. 2, I posted in a Yuma Facebook group about Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra: her time as Tecate's mayor, her later seat in Mexico's Congress, and that 2021 headline. I didn't name Carlos Adams. Not once.

He showed up anyway. "This is a new low man."

I asked him which fact in the post he was disputing. He didn't pick one. He wrote this:

"you can speak about me, that's okay. But my family ? That's not okay"

His family. In a post about the former mayor of Tecate that never mentioned him.

My opinion: he told on himself. He didn't say the facts were wrong. He said they were about his family.

The John Adams story

Adams has his own version of his family. On KAWC in June, he told a story his father passed down: that the Adams name comes from President John Adams. On Oct. 3 he went further. That day I'd asked him about his parents (you saw his answer in Part 1), and about an hour later another account replied to my question: "maybe he is illegal?"

That wasn't me. I have the screenshot showing exactly who wrote it.

I answered him right there: "I don't think so. People are asking me to find out though."

That second sentence, straight: People had been asking me if I could find out whether he's a legal citizen. That's what they wanted to know. My own answer was the first sentence: I don't think so. And I said it right there in the thread.

My question to him was about his age and his parents. It still is.

That afternoon, Adams posted an image of those four words, with no name on them, and this:

"For those wondering, my father is Native American. My roots in this country run deep. My last name Adams comes from John Adams, the 2nd president of the United States. I am a descendant."

So he'll tell Yuma his father's heritage. He'll tell Yuma his father's famous ancestor. He still won't tell Yuma his father's name.

And he turned a stranger's comment into the story. His post never says who wrote it. My opinion: he was happy to let people think it came from me. A simple question about his parents turned into a fight over whether he "belongs" here, and the question never got answered.

My opinion: the John Adams story is a stretch, and it's an easier story to tell than the one in Tecate. No record we have backs it up. He's welcome to show one.

Cousins in the hills

The Adams name runs deep around Tecate. There's an old Adams family in Nejí, a Kumiai community east of town. In 2020, the former mayor told ZETA that Óscar Eyraud Adams, a Kumiai activist killed that year, was a distant relative. That history is its own story, The Adamses of Nejí, and nothing in it ties to the candidate.

One more branch

The former mayor was married, according to Mexican press, to a man whose name shows up in a federal courthouse in San Diego, in 2001.

So does another name, in parentheses.

I'll get there. First, what happened when Adams found out I was looking.

The scorecard

Verified

• The 2021 headline calls the boxing-shoe maker the nephew of Tecate's mayor.
• Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra was Tecate's elected mayor, 2019 to 2021.
• She said in 2019 that her father was a Carlos Adams.
• A Tecate probate record names Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra as a woman's brother.
• An Arizona Carlos G. Adams, born November 1965, lists Tecate and Yuma.
• Adams answered my post about the former mayor: "you can speak about me, that's okay. But my family ? That's not okay"
• Adams posted that his father is Native American and that he descends from John Adams.

Not verified

• That Adams is the former mayor's nephew.
• That the former mayor and Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra are siblings.
• That Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra is the Carlos G. Adams on the Yuma deed.
• That the man on the deed is the candidate's father.
• Who Adams meant by "my family."
• Any of the ancestry claims.

My opinion

• This is the candidate's family, and the 2021 headline is right.
• With "my family," he told on himself.
• The John Adams story is a stretch.
• Adams knows every answer on this page.

Ask him yourself

I've asked Adams these. He dodged. Ask him yourself, in public, and if he answers, I'll print it.

• Are you Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra's nephew?
• When you said "my family" about my post on her, who did you mean?
• You told us your father's heritage. What's his name?
• Is Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra your father?
• Is the Carlos G. Adams on the 2000 deed to your trademark address your father?
• Why does a 2021 article call you the mayor of Tecate's nephew?
• Where does the John Adams story come from?

Next: Adams finds out someone's digging, and goes public. The Public Fight

Where this comes from

• Yo Amo Tijuana, April 15, 2021. Article. Reporting; unsigned, no source for the kinship claim.
• Mexico's federal electoral tribunal, SUP-REC-1951-2021. Ruling. Official record.
• San Diego Reader, Oct. 26, 2020, and AFN Tijuana, March 2021, on the City Hall standoff and the order to stand trial. See Tecate's Deadliest Years for links. Reporting; no verdict found.
• Tecate Informativo, May 3, 2019. Article. Reporting of her own words.
• El Imparcial, Sept. 1, 2021. Article. Reporting.
• Tecate property registry, 2018 probate and subdivision entries and a 2024 judgment registration, plus a 2023 court notice. Official records, from copies in our archive.
• Arizona court portal, two traffic cases for a Carlos G. Adams born November 1965. Official portal records.
• Our Oct. 4, 2026 research decision to treat two Carlos records as one person. My call; not evidence.
• My Facebook screenshots of my Olga post, his "my family" reply and his ancestry post, Oct. 2 and 3, 2026, in our research archive. Facebook showed only times like "21h," so the dates are when the screenshots were saved. They show what was posted; they don't independently prove who runs each account.
• KAWC, June 2, 2026 interview. Audio. Machine transcript, not checked by ear.
• ZETA, Sept. 26, 2020. Article. Reporting.
• Full details: source guide.