CICIG Thursday strikes again

Guatemala's Public Ministry and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) carried out a series of searches and arrests on CICIG Thursday.

Authorities arrested 23 people during the day and sent seven international orders for capture, including for Alba Lorenzana, the wife of Mexican media magnate Angel Gonzalez and a partner in his companies.

"We are facing a criminal structure that had co-opted power ... with the ultimate goal of illegal enrichment," Attorney General Thelma Aldana said at a news conference, adding that the organisation was led by Perez and his former vice president Roxana Baldetti.

According to the investigation, officials and businessmen started using a "mechanism" during the 2011 elections to hide bribes, pulling in at least $130 million. The scheme continued until the resignation of Perez and Baldetti, who are both in jail pending trial for customs fraud.

After some progress in tackling corruption during the latter few years of the Colom administration, primarily as a result of CICIG, I thought that it was going to be unlikely that we would see so much graft in the next administration, no matter whether Baldizon or Perez Molina emerged victorious. I can't say Baldizon would have been more or less corruption than Perez Molina, but wow, the extent to which he and his cronies plundered the state is just astonishing. The created this money laundering scheme back in 2007 in the run up to that year's national elections. According to CICIG, it operated until last year. Thirty-seven other people are still at-large.

The attorney general's office and the Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a U.N.-backed body that was key in Perez's fall, said Perez and Baldetti took at least 60 percent of the funds for themselves, to live a life of luxury.

The investigation is looking at 450 cases of illicit contracts, involving bankers, officials, and businessmen such as the legal representative of Sigma, Guatemala's most important construction firm, as well as people who acted as front men to hide the source of funds.

The $20-30 million dollars per year that the international community pays for CICIG pays for itself many times over.