1,500 business people benefited from Guatemalan fraud

(AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File)

From the AP/Yahoo

A Guatemalan judge has ordered 50 businesspeople suspected in a wide-ranging customs corruption scheme not to leave the country while the investigation continues.

The scandal involves companies bribing government officials to avoid import duties and has already led to the resignation of President Otto Perez Molina and his Vice President Roxana Baldetti.

The attorney general said last week that at least 1,500 businesspeople had benefited from the customs fraud.

Also Wednesday, officials in neighboring El Salvador announced they have opened an investigation into whether any of its citizens participated in the Guatemala scheme.

The scandal initially centered on Baldetti's personal secretary and has roiled Guatemalan politics. Prosecutors have worked to unwind it in conjunction with a U.N. commission set up to tackle criminal networks and impunity in Guatemala.

The argument that CICIG is too expensive to replicate in Honduras or El Salvador is silly. It has cost a few million dollars each year to operate in Guatemala. CICIG isn't the only reason but Guatemala's homicide rate will have gone down six years in a row, impunity rates have decreased, and multi-million dollar frauds have been disrupted. The populations of Honduras and El Salvador combined equal that of Guatemala.

Salvadoran congressmen were killed nearly a decade ago in Guatemala, presumably because they were thought to be trafficking drugs. Manuel Baldizon recently traveled to San Salvador. Salvadoran businessmen hide invest their money in Nicaragua. An international commission to investigate and help prosecute illegal acts that cross state borders wouldn't be such a bad idea.