 "The New York Times" reported on October 11, 2012, on Martínez's involvement in the bankruptcy of Vitro, a 103-year-old Mexican glassmaking firm run by the Sada family, an event that was surrounded by “Allegations…of covert meetings, fraudulent debts and crooked courts” and that ended up with “the company in the hands of its shareholders, while costing bondholders as much as 60 percent of their investment.”

"The Times" traced the story to 2009, when Martínez loaned Vitro $75 million in exchange for the title to several of its properties and an option to return them to Vitro later in exchange for a 24 percent stake in the firm.In 2010, Martínez “went to the different banks that Vitro owed money to and bought the claims,” thus becoming the firm's “biggest individual outside creditor, owning about $600 million worth of claims.” Vitro “began taking big loans from its subsidiaries, in effect creating a fresh class of creditors outside of the hedge funds — a group under its control, with the rights to approve any bankruptcy plan.Subsidiaries went from owing the parent company about $1.2 billion to being owed $1.5 billion.” With Martínez's help, Vitro “outvoted many other bondholders to approve a reorganization plan” that paid creditors about 40 to 60 percent of what they were owed and kept the Sada family in control.