By Sofia Menchu
GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) – Guatemala on Wednesday arrested a former tax chief known for chasing oligarchs’ wealth and dropped a graft charge against a former president, the latest setbacks to U.S. President Joe Biden’s campaign to hold the powerful accountable in Central America.
The Biden administration has made targeting corruption central to its $4 billion strategy to address “root causes” driving migration from the so-called Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Juan Francisco Solorzano Foppa, the head of the Tax Administration Superintendency (SAT) between 2016 and 2018, built a reputation for building cases against powerful Guatemalan families that hold huge sway in the country.
He also uncovered and reported a corruption network within SAT that had been defrauding the state by helping business leaders avoid paying taxes.
Foppa, who was forming a new political party, was detained on Wednesday on accusations of falsifying official documents.
“This does not give me any shame,” Foppa said, showing the handcuffs on his wrists to the media in court. “This shows we are touching the powerful people of this country.”
Prior to joining SAT, Foppa was a prosecutor and part of a team that revealed the first case of corruption against former president Otto Pérez Molina and his government, which was brought down by a series of a corruption scandals.
Perez Molina, who ruled the country between 2012 and 2015, has been in prison since he resigned and lost his immunity in 2015. He was facing five separate charges.
On Wednesday, the first chamber of the Court for High Risk Crimes said that it dropped one of those charges linked to corruption and money laundering.
Tiziano Breda, a Crisis Group analyst for Central America, said on Twitter the move by the court was “another setback in the fight against corruption and impunity in Guatemala.”
Police on Wednesday also arrested Anibal Arguello, a lawyer who had worked for Guatemala’s U.N.-backed anti-corruption commission CICIG.
A day earlier, a U.S. State Department report on Central American officials “credibly alleged” to be corrupt includes six sitting Honduran lawmakers and two Guatemalan legislators, according to a list released by the office of U.S. Representative Norma Torres on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City; Writing by Drazen Jorgic; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
