What the Records Say

The Paper Trail, Part 7 of 7

Back in Part 3, I told you about the first straight question I asked Carlos Adams. His campaign account shot back four words.

"why such a question"

Here's why.

Because a man asked Yuma to make him mayor. Because he spent months demanding answers from everybody at City Hall. And because when the questions turned to him, where he went to school, who his parents are, who owns his company, he went quiet, or he went on the attack.

So I went to the paper. This is everything it says, added up. Proven. Not proven. My opinion. And what got thrown out, because some of it did.

Proven

The candidate. Adams organized his campaign committee April 28 and ran for mayor as a write-in. He got 1,348 votes in the July 21 primary. Mayor Douglas Nicholls won outright.

The business. A business-name filing for Adams Boxing in 2014, another for Adams Footwear in 2017. A trademark try in 2015 that lapsed. Trademarks in the name Carlos Gil Adams registered in 2020 and 2021, two renewed this year. A website that says AdamsFTWR INC runs it. Shipments from Sialkot, Pakistan, in 2015 and again from 2024 to 2026. A real business, with about a decade of paper and almost no answers about who owns it. (Part 2.)

The house. His business mail and his trademarks run through a Yuma house deeded in 2000 to a Carlos G. Adams and his wife. Adams would've been 6 or 7. His campaign treasurer lists the same house. (Part 3.)

The headline. In 2021, a Tijuana-area site called the boxing-shoe maker the nephew of Tecate's mayor. Tecate's mayor then was Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra, who said her father was a Carlos Adams. (Part 4.)

One family tie. A 2018 Tecate probate record names a Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra as a woman's brother. The only family relationship in the Tecate branch a record spells out.

"My family." When I posted about the former mayor without naming him, Adams answered: "you can speak about me, that's okay. But my family ? That's not okay." The same day, he posted that his father is Native American and that he descends from John Adams. He still hasn't posted his father's name.

The federal case. In 2001, a federal grand jury in San Diego indicted a group in an MDA conspiracy. Mexican press reported one defendant was married to the future mayor. A DEA affidavit in that case names a "Carlos (Adams)." (Part 6.)

October. On Oct. 4, Adams posted a private message from me and called it proof of a coordinated effort. On Oct. 7, he told Council he'd been targeted, told the mayor to step down and said he was handing in papers. As of Oct. 8, none of them showed up in the City's public systems, and three weeks later the minutes of that meeting still weren't posted. (Part 5.)

What I did. On Oct. 4, I sent the mayor a research summary and filed a tip with Arizona's counterterrorism center. I've said I sent a lead to the FBI; that part rests on my word. The mayor thanked me. That's all he did.

The dodges. Asked about his parents: "I'm feeling like Obama back in 2008" and "I'm just a private citizen." Asked for his evidence about Councilmember Ron Van Why: "stop flirting with me." Asked about the ranch road: "why such a question."

The money. Both of Adams's second-quarter campaign reports add up, and the amended numbers carry into his July report. (Our campaign-finance audit.) Credit where it's due.

Not proven

• That Adams is the former mayor's nephew. One unsigned headline says so.
• That she and Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra are brother and sister.
• That Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra is the Carlos G. Adams on the Yuma deed.
• That the man on the deed is Adams's father. No record names his parents.
• Who the "Carlos (Adams)" in the 2001 affidavit is.
• That the defendant is Adams's uncle. His 2003 plea and sentence are reported, not checked by us against the judgment.
• Any tie between Adams or his family and any cartel.
• Who owns AdamsFTWR INC, and where it's registered.
• His ancestry stories, including John Adams.
• Any coordinated effort against Adams, and the "net worth" offer he described.

No record I have shows Carlos Adams committed a crime. I'll say that as plain as I've said everything else.

My opinion

This is mine. Labeled, like it's been all along.

• The Carlos G. Adams on that deed is his father. The woman with him is most likely his mother.
• That man is Tecate's Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra, and the 2021 headline is right. Adams is the former mayor's nephew.
• Adams has a family history he's worked hard to keep out of view, and it's a danger to Yuma.
• He dodges simple questions, and when pushed, he answers with jokes, deflection and a comment section that does the insulting for him.
• With "my family," he told on himself.
• His Transparency Club works like a political action committee.
• The John Adams story is a stretch.
• He wants transparency from everybody but himself.

Every opinion on that list, Adams could knock down in one sentence. Name your father. Name your mother. Say whether the former mayor of Tecate is your aunt. Show the paper on your company.

He hasn't. Not once. You can decide what that means.

Thrown out

I tested these and dropped them. Some were mine.

The ranch road. His 2014 filing used an address on a road where a bankrupt ranch company was in court. No record ties him to it.

The deed as the candidate. Our research first had him as the man who bought that Yuma house in 2000. He'd have been about 6.

A web of local connections. We tested whether Adams was tied to certain local business people, development deals and companies, including through the account that insulted me on Facebook. Nothing turned up. I'm not naming them. They didn't earn a spot in a story about connections that weren't there.

A second Yuma house. No Adams name in any of its records.

The Saudi supplier. A trade database tied one of his Pakistani shippers to a company in Riyadh. Database mixup.

What we fixed along the way

• The deed match, downgraded once the age math showed up.
• Trademark registration dates an earlier pass misread.
• The campaign treasurer's entries, first recorded incompletely.
• A 2001 court form an earlier note described as more blacked out than it is.
• In our own campaign-finance audit, a few "discrepancies" in the mayor's reports turned out to be our typos, not his. We dropped them.
• In that same audit, we got one wrong about Adams. Our Oct. 1 audit said a $500 receipt and two expenses were removed from Adams's amended second-quarter report. His July report shows matching entries, which suggests they were moved to the period they were dated in. We've updated that story.

What would settle it

• Adams. He can name his parents, say whether he owns the trademarks and the company, say whether he's related to the former mayor, and release what he turned in Oct. 7. He's the shortcut. One afternoon with him, and most of this series is settled.
• The former mayor's birth record, at the Baja California civil registry. It names her parents.
• The City Clerk's file of what Adams handed in Oct. 7.
• The original 2014 and 2017 business filings, at the San Diego County Clerk.
• A state record for AdamsFTWR INC.
• The original shipping bills.
• ACTIC and the FBI, on what they did with my tip.
• Mayor Nicholls, on Adams's questions about his business and recusals.

Ask him yourself

I've asked Adams about the unproven items on this page. He dodged every one. Now it's your turn. Ask him in public, on his campaign page or at a forum, where he has to answer in front of people. If he answers, I'll print it in the story it belongs in.

• Who are your parents?
• Is Carlos Gil Adams Pereyra your father?
• Is Olga Zulema Adams Pereyra your aunt?
• When you said "my family" about my post on her, who did you mean?
• Who owns AdamsFTWR INC?
• Where did you go to high school?
• What did you actually turn in to the City on Oct. 7?

Don't take my word for any of this. Take his, if he'll ever give it. Until then, go look at the paper.

Also from this research: three Tecate stories that stand on their own: The Adamses of Nejí, 'Sin agua no podemos hacer nada' and Tecate's Deadliest Years, by the Numbers.

Where this comes from

Each item is sourced in full in Parts 1 through 6. Records used only here:

• USPTO assignment searches for the four Adams trademarks, Oct. 1, 2026. No recorded transfers.
• Arizona Corporation Commission records and name searches used to test the local-connection theories. Names withheld.
• Our review of all 30 pages of the four Adams committee filings, which named no one from those theories in any role.
• Trademo trade-data profile behind the Saudi mixup.
• Our research archive's correction records.
• Full details: source guide.