El Salvador Overpaid $7 Million to Shell Company for Undelivered Milk During Pandemic

[Judi Lynn]

1. From 2021: Top Bukele Official Embezzled $1.6 Million in Covid-19 Emergency Food Supplies

Sunday, September 19, 2021
Efren Lemus y Carlos Martínez

Leer en español.

A criminal investigation in El Salvador found evidence that Bukele’s vice minister of justice and Bureau of Prisons director, Osiris Luna, embezzled $1.6 million worth of food between September and November of 2020 from the Public Health Emergency Program (PES), a government storehouse of goods purchased during the pandemic to feed affected families.

Then, with the help of his own mother as negotiator, Luna resold these goods to a merchant criminally accused twice of selling contraband.

Also responsible, prosecutors allege, were at least two other members of Bukele’s cabinet: María Chichilco, minister of local development, and Franklin Alberto Castro Rodríguez, former vice minister of governance and territorial development, who at the time of the alleged crimes was the coordinator of PES. Prosecutors labeled Chichilco and Castro as “direct authors” of the embezzlement for allowing Luna to take control of government goods that they administered.

Prosecutors determined that Luna was a “necessary accomplice” to the crime of embezzlement because he was an “intermediary for the acquisition” of a total of 38,500 bottles of oil and 43,000 sacks of rice, sugar, and beans property of the government, which were sold to a third party rather than delivered to families affected by the coronavirus.

More:
https://elfaro.net/en/202109/el_salvador/25736/top-bukele-official-embezzled-1-6-million-in-covid-19-emergency-food-supplies

The President who has described himself as "the world's coolest dictator" also expects to be considered the Latin American President who is absolutely deadly against crime of all kinds. (As long as it comes from the "lower" class, that is.)