This prior post went in-depth into the recent $118.2 million FCPA enforcement action against Comcel (doing business as TIGO Guatemala – a mobile and fixed telecommunications service provider with its principal place of business in Guatemala).
There are two specific individuals mentioned in the DOJ charging documents: Acisclo Valladares Urruela (“Valladares” pictured) (a citizen of Guatemala and TIGO Guatemala’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and Head of Legal in or around and between 2008 and 2015 and again serving as Chief Corporate Affairs Officer in or around 2017) and Alvaro Estuardo Cobar Bustamante (“Cobar”) [a Guatemalan citizen and director of a Guatemalan bank] who facilitated the bribery scheme by providing Valladares with cash in order to pay bribes to Guatemalan officials and reimbursements for bribes TIGO Guatemala executives had already paid.
It is likely that some are going to link the Comcel enforcement action – which does indeed reference “the use of narcotrafficking proceeds to fund some of the bribes” – to the June DOJ “Guidelines for Investigations and Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” which does indeed stated: “one primary consideration in deciding whether to pursue an FCPA investigation or enforcement action is whether the alleged misconduct (1) is associated with the criminal operations of a Cartel or TCO; (2) utilizes money launderers or shell companies that engage in money laundering for Cartels or TCOs.”
Let’s perhaps “nip” that narrative “in the bud” a bit by highlighting that Valladares and Cobar were criminally charged by the DOJ in 2020 and 2019 in connection with certain of the same core conduct.
This November 2019 DOJ press release announced “the arrest of Alvaro Estuardo Cobar Bustamante, the director of a national Guatemalan bank, on a charge of money laundering, and the unsealing of a money laundering case against Manuel Antonio Baldizon Mendez, a former candidate for president of Guatemala.”
As stated in the release:
“The criminal complaint and indictment charging Cobar Bustamante with money laundering was unsealed today in the Southern District of Florida (Case Nos. 19mj03536, 18cr20706). According to allegations in the complaint, after multiple cooperating witnesses, who were prosecuted for narcotics trafficking, informed the FBI that Cobar Bustamante was involved in helping the traffickers to launder their drug proceeds, the FBI initiated a sting operation to gather evidence of Cobar Bustamante’s money laundering activity. In recorded conversations, Cobar Bustamante is alleged to have agreed to accept what was represented to be money earned from drug trafficking and to secretly move that money to the United States by using his position as the director of a national Guatemalan bank.”
In 2022, Cobar was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
As highlighted in this August 2020 DOJ press release:
“South Florida federal prosecutors have charged a former Economics Minister of Guatemala, Asisclo Valladares Urruela, 44, with helping to launder close to $10 million of illegal drug proceeds and other ill-gotten money. Prosecutors allege that during a four-year conspiracy, Valladares Urruela enabled the illegal drug trade by creating a demand for untraceable cash, cash that Valladares Urruela used to bribe corrupt Guatemalan politicians.
[…]
Valladares Urruela regularly received backpacks, duffel bags, and brief cases full of dirty, untraceable cash that he knew came from drug trafficking and corruption and used it to bribe Guatemalan politicians, according to the complaint affidavit. Valladares Urruela’s demand for bribe cash was allegedly so great, he allegedly once remarked to a co-conspirator that politicians must think money grows on trees.
Some of the money from Valladares Urruela’s alleged scheme with his co-conspirators passed through U.S. bank accounts.”
Valladares pled guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering and in 2022 he was sentenced to one year in prison and agreed to forfeit $140,000 to the U.S. government. (See here).
