Ex Guatemalan Vice President Has Her Bank Accounts Frozen
On Friday a Guatemalan court froze the bank accounts tied to former Vice President Roxana Baldetti. The inaccessible money is worth around $850,000.
Aside from freezing her bank accounts, authorities have also raided 14 properties linked to her.
Baldetti resigned from her position on May 8, as a corruption scandal had implicated her former private secretary and opened her up to an investigation as well.
As reported in the New York Daily News, President Otto Perez Molina said, "Her resignation is due to a personal decision with the only interest being to leave her office voluntarily, to submit herself to and cooperate with whatever investigations may be necessary and above all within the due process."
As reported by The Associated Press, Judge Marco Villeda, who made the ruling to freeze Baldetti's accounts, stated he had also frozen accounts registered to suspects that are currently jailed due to the corruption scandal. The money in the frozen accounts adds up to $1.7 million.
Julio Suárez, Guatemala’s central bank chief, along with 14 others, have all been arrested and stand accused of being involved in the customs scandal.
Since the news of the scandal broke, there have been huge protests that have affected the government. As reported in the Guardian, Pérez recently announced that he had dismissed the interior, energy and environment ministers.
Despite her resignation and now the freeze on her accounts, Baldetti has not officially been charged with any part of the corruption scandal and has denied any guilt in the matter.
Her former private secretary Juan Carlos Monzon Rojas has been named as the alleged mastermind behind the crime. Rojas, who is currently a fugitive, is alleged to have organized a customs scheme in which officials defrauded the state of millions of dollars by taking bribes to charge lower customs duties.
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