January 31, 2019 (The Republic) MEXICO CITY — Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said Thursday that three management-level officials at Mexico’s state-controlled petroleum company will be asked to resign as investigations proceed into suspicious contracts awarded to universities for technical expertise. “We can’t tolerate anything that has to do with corruption or even accept [...]
February 1, 2019 (Reuters) BRASILIA - A Brazilian Supreme Court justice reopened a probe on Friday into suspicious cash payments involving President Jair Bolsonaro’s son Flavio, reviving an investigation that has dogged the president’s first few weeks in office. In a decision that revoked an earlier injunction blocking the probe, Justice Marco Aurelio Mello also [...]
February 1, 2019 (Global Construction Review) The World Bank has debarred Brazilian construction giant Construtora Norberto Odebrecht SA for fraudulent and collusive practices in Colombia, meaning it cannot work on World Bank-financed projects anywhere for three years. Odebrecht paid commercial agents for confidential information during the prequalification and bidding on a $487m flood control and [...]
February 4, 2019 (The Guardian) Nayib Bukele, a former mayor of El Salvador’s capital, has won a landslide victory in Sunday’s presidential election, winning more votes than his two closest rivals combined to end a quarter of a century of two-party dominance in the crime-plagued Central America nation. The supreme electoral court declared Bukele the [...]
January, 26 2019 (Mexico News Daily) Petroleum theft cost Pemex 147.2 billion pesos (US $7.7 billion) between 2016 and 2018, according to a report by the state oil company, a figure that is far higher than previously thought. Pemex data and federal intelligence reports show that fuel theft and the financial damage it causes have [...]
January, 27 2019 (The Guardian) Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro’s dwindling band of foreign supporters like to claim, is a theatre in a new cold war. Donald Trump’s administration and his hawkish foreign policy advisers, with their occasional threats of military intervention, provide the perfect props. So does Jair Bolsonaro, the new far-right president in Brazil. But [...]
January, 8 2019 (The Guardian) Guatemala’s President Jimmy Morales is facing international condemnation after announcing the expulsion of a United Nations-backed anti-corruption mission in what critics suspect is a calculated bid to shield the country’s ruling elite – and himself – from investigation. Addressing journalists in Guatemala City on Monday afternoon, Morales claimed the decision [...]
January, 8 2019 (Panampost) The United States government this week took aggressive measures to sanction a group of people guilty of participating in the economic devastation of Venezuela. These include individuals and companies that looted and embezzled public resources during the regimes of Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. The Office of Foreign Assets Control of [...]
January, 8 2019 (Reuters) SAO PAULO (Reuters) - A Brazilian man facing allegations of bribing officials at state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PETR4.SA) on behalf of Vitol Group [VITOLV.UL], Glencore (GLEN.L) and other major oil trading firms has been arrested in the United States, authorities said Tuesday. Luiz Eduardo Loureiro Andrade was detained in [...]
January, 11 2019 (Reuters) SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Commodities trader Trafigura [TRAFGF.UL] has refused a judge’s order to hand over the email archives of two former executives in Brazil who are facing corruption charges over accusations they bribed officials at state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro. Brazilian federal prosecutors on Friday demanded in a court filing [...]
January, 11 2019 (Ottawa Citizen) BOGOTA — Thousands of Colombians staged protests in several cities Friday to demand the resignation of the country’s chief prosecutor. Nestor Humberto Martinez is a key U.S. ally in the war on drugs, but his critics at home say he has withheld information that links Colombian politicians and business groups [...]
January, 9 2019 (BN Americas) Since winning massive support in a referendum last month, President Martín Vizcarra has promulgated political and legal reforms aimed at combatting corruption. President Vizcarra, who has made the fight against corruption the cornerstone of his government since taking office in March 2018, enacted into law reforms in campaign financing; a [...]