NewsUSAA former Guatemalan minister investigated for money laundering pleads guilty in the US

A former Guatemalan minister investigated for money laundering pleads guilty in the US

Bilateral meeting between the United States and Guatemala (FILE) – PRESIDENCY OF GUATEMALA

The former Minister of Economy of Guatemala, Acisclo Valladares Urruela, has pleaded guilty to money laundering crimes in a federal court in Miami, in the United States.

Valladares has acknowledged his participation in a transaction worth 342,000 euros (350,000 dollars) to senior Guatemalan officials through two companies that had bank accounts in Miami, according to the former minister in a document to which the newspaper has had access. Public plaza’.

The former Guatemalan Minister of Economy surrendered to the US Justice in November 2020, three months after the South Florida Prosecutor’s Office filed charges against him for money laundering crimes. In addition, since January 2020 he has been a fugitive in Guatemala, where he has two arrest warrants for his involvement in two other corruption cases, according to the aforementioned newspaper.

“The defendant (Valladares Urruela) agrees to plead guilty to count I, which counts the charges from January 2014 (…) in the Southern District of Florida and elsewhere, the defendant knowingly and willfully conspired to participate in a transaction currency in foreign trade through a financial institution, in criminally derived property of a value greater than 350,000 euros that was derived from a specific illegal activity,” says the document signed by the former minister.

The US authorities have indicated that the transactions that were executed “involved money that the defendant knew or should have known was coming from illicit activity” which “would prove, among other things, that there is a crime against a foreign nation, in this case Guatemala,” according to the newspaper ‘Prensa Libre’.

In the agreement signed between the South Florida Prosecutor’s Office and Valladares, it is determined that “the testimony of the co-conspirator and the evidence collected are sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused.”

Source: Europa Press

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