Tag: corruption

QCOSTARICA - President Carlos Alvarado said he has all the confidence in his Minister of Public Works and Transport (MOPT, Rodolfo Méndez Mata, and will not request his resignation. "If someone can do the public work and contribute so that this is resolved, it is...

QCOSTARICA - The judicial file of the Cochinilla Case, on alleged corruption in road works, exposes how three companies would have covered up the placement of a defective asphalt mixture in the new overpass of Garantías Sociales, in Zapote, which did not meet the...

QCOSTARICA - Almost ¢140 billion colones (US$227 million dollars) is the amount the MECO construction company was able to snare for public works contracts between 2018 and June 2021. Specifically, it is ¢139,219,247,219, according to the information available from the "Consultations on Administrative Contracting" portal...

QCOSTARICA - The prestige of the company of some of the richest men in Costa Rica hangs by a thread. For many, the MECO Construction Company logo is very easy to recognize on Costa Rican highways, as it has to its credit a large...

QCOSTARICA - If it is proven in a final judgment that they did pay bribes to Conavi officials, several companies could be disqualified from building road infrastructure for a period ranging from three to ten years. These are the companies H Solís, Meco, Constructora Herrera...

Q24N - Arriving in the Guatemalan capital about two hours late, after the plane in which she was traveling had to turn around due to technical problems, U.S. vice-president Kamala Harris, on Sunday, began her mission to address the “root causes” of illegal migration...

TODAY VENEZUELA – The wood stove that Jesús Cova and his wife Luisa Cortez used to make soups on weekends with friends is now the only thing they have to cook due to the lack of cooking gas, an increasingly widespread evil in Venezuela,...

QCOSTARICA - A resident of Desamparados, paid a teenage girl for cell phone recharges, in exchange for her sending him photographs. In addition, on one occasion he offered her ¢20,000 colones to have a sexual encounter with her. On Thursday, judicial agents detained the 29-year-old...

Q24N (EL UNIVERSAL) - The Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO) mentions that corruption is a phenomenon that does not respect borders. Since 1999, Mexico has acquired international commitments focused on investigating and sanctioning international bribery. However, it has not imposed a single penalty for...

Q24N - President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said on Friday that he would not tolerate members of his government that may be linked to former defense minister Salvador Cienfuegos, who was arrested in Los Angeles the day before. "It is very regrettable that a defense...

OPINION - The FANAL has temporarily stops focusing on producing its main contribution to "Costa Rica's public health", the guaro, to produce antiseptic alcohol and everyone applauds as if they would be the only company in the country do be able to do it....

(Bloomberg) Latin America's war on corruption is something to celebrate. In the last few years, 11 presidents have either been driven from office or forced to answer in courts of law for crooked dealings. In a virtuous feedback loop, citizen outrage over official transgressors...

Joe Biden’s family’s domestic and international and business dealings are linked to the former vice president’s political influence, explained Peter Schweizer, author of Profiles in Corruption: Abuse of Power by America’s Progressive Elite, president of the Government Accountability Institute, and senior contributor at Breitbart News. “Everything...

The report of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) “Mejor gasto para mejores vidas” (Better spending for better lives) published in 2018 estimates that in Costa Rica, 4.7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that for that year -  almost US$3 billion dollars - is...

The ease of doing business in Latin America has improved over the past 15 years, by halving the number of days it takes to start a business a little more than a month on average, according to the World Bank's Doing Business annual report. Brazil...

The Ministerio Publico is targeting 16 former legislators from the previous period (2014-2018), as they apparently accepted trips outside of Costa Rica paid by third parties, organizations or companies, investing whether they may or may not have committed a crime. Among the controversial trips, one...

La Trocha, officially national route 1856, is a trail developed in 2010 by the government of Laura Chinchilla Miranda (2010-2014) through a national emergency decree in the face of the border dispute with Nicaragua. The route was never fully completed and ceased to be a...

Costa Rica’s economic freedom score is 65.3, making its economy the 61st freest of 180 countries in the 2019 Index of Economic Freedom. The report, prepared by The Heritage Foundation, measures components such as respect for private property, operation of state entities, taxes and market...

Crime, weak economies and corruption are pushing Latin Americans to move abroad. Among them are citizens of El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala who are emigrating en masse. They are fed up with poverty and violence, and people-smugglers have become adept at transporting them. This exodus...

(Reuters) - Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is planning by early September to fulfill a campaign vow to launch an independent commission to investigate corruption, similar to a U.N.-backed body in Guatemala that brought down that country’s last president. “Within our first 100 days we will...

After the leftist firebrand Andrés Manuel López Obrador won the Mexican presidency in a landslide last year, he vowed to “govern for all, starting with the poor.” In Mexico, “the poor” includes many women, who earn 34% less than men for doing the same job....

Guatemala appeared to be moving towards a second-round runoff election following a presidential vote on Sunday. Early results from 20% of polling stations counted showed center-left candidate Sandra Torres securing 23.33% of the vote compared to a second-place finish of 15.70% for her conservative rival...

The immense fortune created by the combination of high oil prices and the copious extraction of black gold from Venezuelan subsoil laid the foundation for a “Bolivarian Joint Criminal Enterprise” (BJCE), according to a report signed by Douglas Farah and Caitlyn Yates, the president...

When asked to explain why their efforts to oust Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro have fallen short, Trump administration officials typically cite the sinister influence of Cuba and Russia, which they say has stiffened the regime’s resistance. What they don’t speak about so much is a...

Peru's former President Alan Garcia died on Wednesday, after shooting himself as police arrived at his house to arrest him in connection with a bribery probe Garcia, who had repeatedly denied wrongdoing, died in a Lima hospital. He was 69. Garcia, who led Peru's once-powerful Apra...

Costa Rican authorities arrested the father-in-law of El Salvador's former president, Juan Carlos Guzmán Berdugo, wanted in his country on corruption charges, the Public Ministry (prosecutor's office) reported Wednesday.   The detainee is the father of Ada Mitchell Guzmán, the wife of the ex-president of El...

Venezuela announced on Sunday the beginning of a 30-day electricity rationing plan. President Nicolas Maduro said the rationing regime would balance generation and transmission with consumption. He did not elaborate on how the rationing program would be carried out. Information Minister Jorge Rodriguez also announced on...

Insightcrime.org - A series of arrests in Guatemala has brought down a criminal group made up of police officers working as drug dealers and hitmen, showing how the country has not been spared from the growing crisis of police criminality across the region. The network,...

When the word mafia is mentioned, the first things that usually comes to mind are the likes of Al Capone, La Cosa Nostra, The Mob or Pablo Escobar. Well, the government mafia in Costa Rica is not as evil as those just mentioned but...

Corruption in the government of Costa Rica is a real thing. So is the lengthy process of firing an alleged corrupt public employee. In 2018, corruption was the second cause of dismissal of the central Government. In 199 of the cases of dismissals registered in...

Brazilian financial authorities have identified suspicious money transfers into an account of President Jair Bolsonaro's son in 2017, the Globo news outlet reported Saturday, citing the country's Council for Financial Activities Control. According to the outlet, in 2017, 48 cash transfers of 2,000 reals (US$500)...