{"id":3314,"date":"2017-08-24T14:22:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-24T22:22:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/?p=3314&lang=en"},"modified":"2018-04-15T13:15:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-15T21:15:57","slug":"the-public-ministry-is-investigating-president-morales-fcn-party-for-receiving-campaign-contributions-from-a-drug-trafficker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/politics\/corruption\/the-public-ministry-is-investigating-president-morales-fcn-party-for-receiving-campaign-contributions-from-a-drug-trafficker\/","title":{"rendered":"The Public Ministry is investigating President Morales\u2019 FCN party for drug trafficker campaign donations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Prosecutors\u2019 Offices have opened three investigations into the political party that led Jimmy Morales to the presidency in 2015.<\/p>\n

By Ferdy Montepeque of El Peri\u00f3dico<\/em><\/h5>\n
This article originally appeared in Spanish on elperiodico.com.gt<\/a> and is republished here with permission.<\/em><\/h6>\n
The Public Ministry\u2019s Money Laundering Prosecutor\u2019s Office is investigating the political party FCN-Naci\u00f3n for a contribution of $500,000 that accused drug trafficker Marlon Monroy Meo\u00f1o, also known as el Fantasma<\/em> (The Ghost), allegedly made to the party during the 2015 election campaign, said Sara Sandoval, the head of that agency. It has also opened two other investigations into FCN-Naci\u00f3n, the party of President Jimmy Morales and Vice President Jafeth Cabrera, for hiding information and illegal campaign financing.<\/p>\n
Sandoval explained that the investigations began automatically after analysis of 2016 press reports that Jafeth Cabrera Cortez, the vice president\u2019s son, received money from el Fantasma<\/em>. She added that she could only speak generally of the case because the Law Against Money Laundering (la Ley Contra el Lavado de Dinero<\/em>) states that specifics of this kind of case must be withheld.<\/p>\n
Before Monroy Meo\u00f1o was extradited along with his wife, Cynthia Cardona, to the United States in November 2016, he told elPeri\u00f3dico<\/em> that during the presidential campaign he personally gave Cabrera Cortez cash in a watch store in Zona 10 of Guatemala City. In the same conversation the alleged cartel boss also said that every drug trafficker had to pay \u201cdues\u201d to FCN-Naci\u00f3n so that authorities \u201cwouldn\u2019t bother them\u201d under their government.<\/p>\n
See also: Drug money in the 2011 elections: The CICIG report<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
Cabrera Cortez has not yet commented on el Fantasma<\/em>\u2019s accusations. Vice-President Cabrera, meanwhile, has repeatedly and testily denied the accusations. \u201cIt\u2019s another lie that they\u2019re associating with me. They should investigate him [Cabrera\u2019s son]; there\u2019s absolutely nothing there, nor do we know [el Fantasma<\/em>],\u201d said the vice president in October, 2016.<\/p>\n
Illegal financing\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n
The Public Ministry\u2019s Prosecutor\u2019s Office Against Electoral Crimes has also opened two other investigations into FCN-Naci\u00f3n. The first is based on a complaint presented last November by the Inspector General of the Supreme Electoral Court (TSE), after FCN-Naci\u00f3n did not present complete reports of its 2015 campaign financing.<\/p>\n
See also: Campaign finance in Guatemala: The CICIG report<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n
The TSE also presented another complaint that neither of the party\u2019s two reports accounted for financing that Morales received from abroad. Yesterday, TSE President Mar\u00eda Eugenia Mijangos said that the accusation was made based on \u201cevidence of illegal election funding from abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
TSE Inspector General \u00d3scar Sagastume explained that the complaint was made this past July so that it would become clear whether anything illegal happened. He said, \u201cThere was a campaign outside of Guatemala with the slogan, \u2018We don\u2019t vote, but we do count.\u2019 The complaint warned the MP that, yes, there was activity related to the electoral process outside of Guatemala.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u201cWe don\u2019t vote, but we do count\u201d campaign was a simulation of the 2015 election held in the US, which Jimmy Morales \u201cwon.\u201d The campaign was organized by former Presidential Commissioner for migration issues Claus Marvin M\u00e9rida Jim\u00e9nez, the fundraiser for publicity for then-presidential candidate Morales.<\/p>\n
$\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n
M\u00e9rida Jim\u00e9nez is a friend of the president, and was his publicist before 2015. The former Commissioner arranged a contract worth Q7.2 million (around $1 million) as a representative of the Guatemalan government with the lobbying firm Barnes & Thornburg to improve relations with the US. He also lobbied for the removal of the US Ambassador to Guatemala Todd Robinson.<\/p>\n
The report that FCN hid<\/strong><\/p>\n
elPeri\u00f3dico<\/em> had access to the report that FCN-Naci\u00f3n presented to the TSE on February 23, which reported a spending total of Q4.3 million during 2015. The documents were declared void by the TSE\u2019s auditor. Still, according to Mijangos, \u201cit\u2019s very probable\u201d that the panel of judges will order the TSE to audit the party\u2019s reports, which it has not done.<\/p>\n
The report for November and December states that Hotel Adriatika donated 79 days of lodging to Morales and his family at a cost of Q120,000 ($16,490). The cost per night of a master suite in the Adriatika is $280 (Q2,000), which would add up to Q160,812 ($22,104). Extended-stay rates are subject to discounts, a hotel assistant said.<\/p>\n
In the second round of the elections, Morales used two armored vehicles for transport. The rentals are valued at Q60,000, but it is not clear who paid this amount. The report also states that \u201csupporters and candidates for other offices\u201d paid Q267,840 ($36,816) for billboards, but the report does not give details about this funding either.<\/p>\n
Electoral crimes<\/strong><\/p>\n
The head of the Public Ministry\u2019s Electoral Crimes Prosecutor\u2019s Office, \u00d3scar Schaad, stated that this agency is investigating the party, and that he still cannot say whether Jimmy Morales, formerly FCN-Naci\u00f3n\u2019s secretary general, is responsible for the campaign finance irregularities.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will establish criminal liability after analysis, but for the moment it\u2019s the party that we are investigating,\u201d the prosecutor said.<\/p>\n
TSE must analyze reports from UNE<\/strong><\/p>\n
TSE judges also announced that they would analyze the Citizen Registry resolution that was used in the decision not to penalize the UNE political party and archive the case, even though irregularities were also found in UNE\u2019s financing. Edie Cux, an analyst of Acci\u00f3n Ciudadana (Citizen Action), said the TSE should thoroughly analyze this report and repeat its audit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two Prosecutors\u2019 Offices have opened three investigations into the political party that led Jimmy Morales to the presidency in 2015. By Ferdy Montepeque of El Peri\u00f3dico This article originally appeared in Spanish on elperiodico.com.gt and is republished here with permission. The Public Ministry\u2019s Money Laundering Prosecutor\u2019s Office is investigating the political party FCN-Naci\u00f3n for a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[426,428,455],"tags":[956,949,950,947,955,954,953,945,65,560,951,952,927,948,946],"class_list":["post-3314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-corruption","category-money-in-politics","category-pagetwo-en","tag-956","tag-campaign-finance","tag-contributions","tag-corruption","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-fantasma","tag-fcn","tag-guatemala","tag-guatemala-en","tag-illegal","tag-jimmy-morales","tag-morales","tag-politics","tag-president"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3314"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3328,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3314\/revisions\/3328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.entremundos.org\/revista\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}