A corruption scandal in Guatemala that already cost the country's vice president her job is drawing even wider circles as the name of a sitting Supreme Court justice is mentioned in a wiretapped backdoor negotiation, The Associated Press reported.

Blanca Aída Stalling Dávila, a member of the Central American nation's top tribunal, will likely have to explain why businessman Luís Mendizábal referred to her in an April 16 telephone call with Javier Ortiz, an associate detained in a scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars in customs payments.

"Blanca Stalling is behind it, and they have very good communication," the entrepreneur said in reference to an attempt to free Ortiz and other defendants, the AP noted based on wiretaps it obtained.

Mendizábal himself is hiding from authorities that have implicated him in the tax corruption scandal, the local newspaper Prensa Libre recalled.

"We are on the ball here," he told his imprisoned associate Ortiz. "We have not abandoned you at all, you know that," the businessman added.

While The Associated Press was unable to reach Stalling for comment, Prensa Libre said it spoke to the justice in a brief telephone conversation. The jurist attributed the mention of her name to its similarity to that of Marta Sierra de Stalling, a federal judge who is married to her brother, the newspaper noted.

"They always confuse me with my sister-in-law," Stalling said.

But the justice was quick to insist that she did not mean to imply that her relative was the official mentioned by Mendizábal, Prensa Libre added.

Guatemalan President Otto Pérez Molina, meanwhile, lauded the Friday decision of his vice president, Roxana Baldetti, to resign over allegation that her former private secretary was the ringleader of a scheme to defraud the state of millions of dollars by taking bribes in exchange for lower customs duties, the AP noted.

The official, Juan Carlos Monzón Rojas, is a fugitive whose last known whereabouts were overseas, the newswire detailed. Baldetti, nevertheless, opened herself up to prosecution with the loss of immunity linked to her vice presidential duties.