An international anti-corruption commission says that the organized crime ring within the Honduran government involved upwards of 140 elected officials and functionaries.
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Juan Jimenez Mayor, lead spokesperson and investigator of The Commission Against Corruption and Impunity in Honduras (MACCIH) formed in 2016 by the Organization of American States (OAS), says MACCIH previously thought the alleged ring, known as the “Network of Functionaries” consisted of around 60 officials.
He says the case allegedly involves around 140 former and current government and elected officials.
According to Mayor, the network, comprised mainly of congress members and non-government organization (NGO) leaders, illegally channeled approximately US$55million in state funds meant for community social projects, into their own pockets. Of the 140 implicated, 30 are NGO leaders.
Up until two weeks ago Mayor and the nine other MACCIH lawyers were investigating the illicit network. On Jan. 18 the right-wing National Party majority Congress passed a budgetary law that took away the MACCIH and the state prosecutor’s office from investigating embezzlement cases since 2006 and gives it to the Superior Accounts Tribunal (TSC) – a governing body with no legal authority to indict.
Five elected officials of the network, who had been detained since December, were immediately released when the law passed.
The law allows the TSC to take up to three years to carry out their audits, essentially sidelining the MACCHIH in the meantime.
Mayor tells El Pais in an interview yesterday that the new law “is very irregular and very negative for the fight against impunity. … (The MACCIH) considers it an “impunity pact.”
The MACCIH lawyer said the commission “is going to continue in Honduras and we’re going to present our next cases.”
Mayor adds the committee has information that current National Party congress members were involved in a money laundering scandal covered by the construction of a hydroelectric dam that Berta Caceres fought against until she was assassinated by the military for her public opposition.
The MACCIH lawyer said these investigations “are making the large part of the political class very nervous.”