Salvadoran Prosecutor’s Office charges Funes’ accomplices with money laundering

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Prosecutor’s Office of El Salvador on Sunday filed formal charges against 3 ex-employees of Hipotecario Bank, accused of being accomplices of ex-president Mauricio Funes (2004-2009) in the embezzlement of over US$351 million in state funds.

The alleged accomplices, arrested on Friday by Salvadoran authorities, are charged with embezzlement and money laundering and assets, said the Public Prosecutor’s Office.

They are the ex-president of Hipotecario Bank Carlos Alberto Ortiz (2009-2011), ex-vice president Carlos Enrique Cruz Arana (2010-2013) and ex-compliance officer Jolman Ayala.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, presented before the Peace Court of San Salvador, Ortiz and Cruz Arana “have taken part in the laundering of over US$97 million,” each one, and for “their collaboration they received US$3,000 a month each.”

Ayala “is charged with having laundered more than US$177 million” and for “whose illegal services he received between US$1,500 and US$2,000 dollars a month,” the source indicated.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office’s investigation indicates that “the money was stolen in cash and was taken in black bags to be deposited in the bank accounts of more than 30 ex-officials, relatives and friends of ex-president Funes.”

The former Salvadoran head of state, who received Nicaraguan nationality in 2019, is being prosecuted along with more than 30 other people for the alleged embezzlement and laundering of over US$351 million in state funds.

Last March, an examining court in El Salvador sentenced Regina Cañas, ex-wife of the former president, to return US$95,000 to the State for her participation in the crime of concealment in a money laundering case.

Funes, who governed under the banner of the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN) vowing to “change” the corruption of previous administrations, is now the third president of El Salvador to be charged with embezzling public money.