This three-part investigative series looks at how the last three winners of the presidency in Guatemala financed their campaigns using hidden funds from drug traffickers to big businessmen. This means of financing campaigns is, in the words of a famous prosecutor, the country’s “original sin.”
The Zetas, Drug Money and the Colom Campaign in Guatemala
In the first of three articles concerning illicit political contributions in Guatemala, we look at the 2007 presidential campaign of Álvaro Colom. Colom, the bookish former head of a prominent…
Guatemala Politics and the Patriotic Party’s Theory of ‘Eternal Return’
Juan Carlos Monzón was in South Korea when his boss, Guatemala’s Vice President Roxana Baldetti, received the call that would change their two trajectories – intimately intertwined for the previous…
President Jimmy Morales' (and Guatemala's) 'Original Sin'
It was just five months after he’d been sworn in as president of Guatemala that Jimmy Morales was in trouble. The date was May 5, 2016, and an auditor appointed…
Related Content
Edgar Gutiérrez spoke with elPeriódico about how the relationship between organized crime and political power has evolved in Guatemala. Gutiérrez,…
Guatemala, Brazil and Bolivia are in the process of obtaining advanced radar technology for aerial interdiction, a strategy that has…
Honduras has convicted a major drug trafficker wanted for extradition by the United States in a second case against him,…
Support Our Work
Investigating organized crime is an expensive and often risky enterprise. Reaching primary sources and getting the real story involve extensive fieldwork. Please donate. Every dollar supports our mission.
DONATE NOW