Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote
Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote

A Guatemalan star lawyer who boasts impeccable contacts with the US Government has fled to Miami after being implicated in a multi-million-dollar bribery scandal.

Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote, once regarded as the go-to lawyer for international companies operating in Guatemala thanks to his enviable role as president of the American Chamber of Commerce, is now a fugitive holed up in the USA after an arrest warrant was issued earlier this year.

The warrant accuses Carrasco of obstruction of justice, conspiracy and abuse of authority after it emerged that the lawyer had allegedly helped disgraced Brazilian construction company Odebrecht pay bribes to the Guatemalan Government.

Carrasco stands accused of enabling Odebrecht to pay nearly $18 million in bribes to the Guatemalan government in order to win $400 million worth of road construction contracts between 2013 and 2015.

Ironically, just as Carrasco was allegedly arranging bribes on behalf of Odebrecht, he was also acting on behalf of the now-defunct International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a United Nations-backed organisation that investigates serious crime and corruption in the country.

The Odebrecht case is the latest controversy to befall Carrasco whose once flourishing career has been left in tatters by a series of lurid scandals. Accused of working for notorious Argentine drug smuggler Fred Machado and connected to more than a dozen questionable offshore companies, Carrasco's flight to the US marks the ignominious downfall of a man who ruled the Guatemalan legal scene for more than a decade.

In 2009, when Carrasco was appointed president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala, few would predict that the high-flying lawyer would one day be a fugitive. Rubbing shoulders with US Embassy officials, such as former ambassador William Popp, and leading American entrepreneurs in Guatemala, Carrasco quickly earned a reputation as a first-class fixer.

Thanks to his bulging contacts book and affable personality, Carrasco's legal career took off at Guatemala-headquartered legal firm Central Law. Previously called Diaz Duran y Asociados, Central Law has 11 offices in seven countries and is considered one of Guatemala's leading law firms.

According to a glowing online biography, Carrasco has spearheaded investment strategies for "multiple mining and energy projects". His prodigious talents shone through and Carrasco was appointed a partner and president at the firm within a few years of joining.

Carrasco's ascension to the role of partner came with added responsibility, however. When the Panama Papers leaked in 2016, the cache of 11.5 million files revealed that Carrasco had played a key role setting up offshore companies for clients.

According to the leaked files, Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm at the centre of the scandal, acted as an agent for Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote's companies at least 11 times. The companies listed were incorporated in jurisdictions such as Panama, the British Virgin Islands and British Anguilla, all regarded as tax havens with low disclosure requirements. Individuals involved in the companies included Carrasco's brother and his wife. It emerged too that Central Law and Mossack Fonseca shared the same address in Guatemala.

Responding to the revelations, Central American newspaper Mundiario commented: "A quite reasonable and logical question arises - why should a decent lawyer, the President of a large law firm, and the Head of the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala have so many shadow business structures with accounts in various offshore zones?"

Carrasco somehow shrugged off the offshore companies controversy, but further scandals would await. In 2021, it emerged that Carrasco had worked for a notorious Argentine drug smuggler called Fred Machado. Argentine police swooped on the narco kingpin in April 2021 as he attempted to board a plane in the city of Neuquen.

An Interpol wanted noticed for Machado had been issued weeks earlier over shocking allegations of money laundering and drug trafficking. Machado was accused of trafficking huge quantities of cocaine into the US from Colombia, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico and other Latin American countries on light aircraft fraudulently purchased. At the same time, Machado used commercial entities to defraud lenders into paying large sums for aircraft that did not exist, were legally inoperable or unsaleable.

Law enforcement officials discovered more than 1,500kg of cocaine in an abandoned plane in Mexico destined for Belize. Elsewhere, more than 2,000kg of cocaine was found in Guatemala in a seized Gulfstream II jet in the Laguna del Tigre National Park.

According to US law enforcement officials, Carrasco represented Machado's mining interests in Guatemala and acted on behalf of his company Minas del Pueblo. Although Carrasco has denied all ties to Machado, the Minas del Pueblo operation was registered to the same address as Central Law. A Florida court, where Machado is being tried, has requested all correspondence between Carrasco and Machado. Guatemalan Congress Carlos Barreda alleged that Machado's mining operations in Guatemala are nothing more than a front for money laundering.

Central Law and Carrasco's reputation suffered another blow with critics questioning why an apparently respectable lawyer who worked closely with US Government officials had chosen to represent an alleged drug trafficker. Colleagues at Central Law warned Carrasco to stay away from Machado but he shrugged off their concerns and embraced the drug smuggler.

But Machado is not the only alleged gangster to have rubbed shoulders with Carrasco. According to reports, in 2014 Carrasco befriended Jurg Widmer Probst, a Swiss-born businessman known as "the King of the Ports" on account of his monopoly of the Puerto Santo Tomas de Castilla, Guatemala's Atlantic port, via his company Interport Group. Carrasco is also reportedly close to Widmer's brother-in-law, Luis Garcia, previously a legal representative of Interport and now Director General at Comercializadora Pahame, which currently controls Puerto Santo Tomas de Castilla.

According to numerous reports, Widmer bribed officials in the government of former president Otto Perez Molina to win around $35 million worth of contracts. One of Interport's subsidiaries that controlled cranes at the port, Servicios Bayside, won contracts worth $26 million in 2011 under the Molina Government, 2454% more than the previous year. Another Interport company, Caribe Gru, which was represented by Carrasco, also won lucrative and allegedly overinflated Government contracts, according to reports.

Widmer fled to his native Switzerland after an arrest warrant was issued in 2016 alleging bribery of Molina and former Vice President Roxana Baldetti in a case dubbed "State Cooptation".

Earlier this year, in a surprising ruling, Widmer's arrest warrant was cancelled by Rudy Bautista, a little-known Guatemalan judge who presides over a small rural court. Guatemalan prosecutors are currently probing the court's decision and have challenged Judge Bautista's ruling.

Despite the scandals and the damage done to Carrasco and Central Law's reputation, the lawyer remained unfazed. However, the final nail in the coffin of his career in Guatemala came in January 2023 when it emerged that the lawyer had represented Odebrecht.

The head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI), Rafael Curruchiche, announced arrest warrants for a string of officials and prominent Guatemalans alleged to have assisted Odebrecht's bribery scheme, including Carrasco, the former attorney general of the Public Ministry (MP), Thelma Aldana, as well as the former MP general secretary Mayra Johana Véliz López, and the former CICIG president Luis David Gaitán Arana. According to the allegations, Carrasco helped arrange bribes between Odebrecht and former Economy Minister Alejandro Sinibaldi and former presidential candidate Manuel Baldizón.

Carrasco's escape to Miami marks the demise of a man once hailed in Guatemala. While Carrasco's supporters claim he is the victim of political persecution by the Government of President Alejandro Giammattei, Carrasco's detractors insist that he is a criminal on-the-run who should be returned to Guatemala to face justice.