Amcham Guatemala head and Odebrecht corruption scandal participant Juan Pablo Carrasco had relations with drug trafficker Machado

Amcham Guatemala President Juan Pablo Carrasco was involved in the Odebrecht scandal and turned out to be a partner of drug trafficker Machado. 

Karin Landaverry, recently imprisoned,  was deputy´s Lilian Garcia adviser, and also Federico Machado´s lawyer. This man, Federico Machado, has been accused of serious crimes in various countries in the world, but in Guatemala particularly, in several illegal mining activities. Federico Machado had been mining through “Minas del Pueblo” in the province of Escuintla, extracting gold and silver, but without a valid license. 

This man is wanted in the USA, charged with accusations like drug dealing and laundering illegal money. Interpol wants him as well. 

During 2019, Mrs Landaverry worked in the MEM, “Ministry of Energy and Mining” in Guatemala, as the leader directress of the mining department, “Executive Directress IV”, during Jimmy Morales´presidency.

During this position, her duties were to supervise the mining operations, including licenses and export permits to Mining companies. She was also the adviser of ex-ambassador Claus Marvin Mérida, brother-in-law of the MEM´s ex-director, Luis Chang.

Federico Machado could extract gold and silver from his illegal mines, because he had a friend in the government entity, MEM. The US Florida Tribunal couldn’t figure out how Machado could commit fraud, deal with drugs and wash illegal money, despite his enterprises did not have any valid license. But then, they discovered his links to Karin Landaverry and some hundreds of thousand dollars transferred to her account, and some other accounts. 

Then, the Florida court asked Guatemala for some information about a character that has been hiding: Juan Pablo Carrasco. They discovered that Central Law, the lawyers´ firm whose owner and president is Juan Pablo Carrasco, has the same address that “Minas del Pueblo”, Machado´s Mining company. 

Pablo Carrasco said he has no relationship or knowledge with Federico Machado, but he could not explain why he shares his notification´s address with Machado. Notifications from the Ministry of Energy and Mines. 

Later, some close sources of “Minas del Pueblo”, confirmed that the “Central Law”´s lawyer attendant of the “Minas del Pueblo” account, is the same Juan Pablo Carrasco, who is also the president of AmCham Guatemala.

Some other sources also confirmed that Karin Landaverry and Juan Pablo Carrasco, together, worked as mining advisers of Federico Machado, and used to do some business with him. As the lawyer attendant of Minas del Pueblo, Mr Carrasco also had been in contact with Luis Chang. 

Now has to be investigated how Juan Pablo Carrasco uses his position as AmCham Guatemala´s president to hide all his frauds and corrupt acts, or to try to hide them.  

 

Who is President Amcham Guatemala Juan Pablo Carrasco?

An expert in Mining laws, with a huge knowledge about international laws regarding mining and development of natural resources.

This Guatemalan lawyer is also the adviser of “Solway”, a Russian Mining company that extracts Nickel in Guatemala since 2014. In 2017 they crossed the corruption line when they let go some red lime into the Izabal lake´s water, which caused the mayan people to protest. They then, following Juan Pablo Carrasco´s suggestions, simply phoned the Guatemalan president and he sent some hundreds of policemen and soldiers, who scattered with violence such protests. Some died that time. 

Then, the Constitutional Court in Guatemala forbade Solway to keep extracting Nickel in Guatemala, mainly because they never asked the mayan people for their authorization, which is an international law´s requirement.

But, again, Juan Pablo Carrasco advised the Mining Company to completely ignore the government’s order, and to continue extracting the metal, and to continue polluting the environment and Lake Izabal´s water, and poisoning the surrounding villages. In 2021, the people protested again, Solway phoned the president again, and there was set a “State of Emergency” there again, and again there were fatalities. 

All that, is Juan Pablo Carrasco de Groote´s deed. (OCCRP report)

And that is not all, because in 2016 some documents leaked from a Lawyers´firm in Panama, Mossack Fonseca, which revealed around 5 million of corrupt acts all around the world. All kind of dirty politicians, drug dealers, corrupt lawyers founded ghost enterprises and opened offshore accounts in “Fiscal paradises” like Panama and others. 

Those documents were known as “Panama Papers”, and Juan Pablo Carrasco´s name occurs there 26 times. 

But that is still not all, because Juan Pablo Carrasco is also involved in that corruption case that caused scandal in all latinoamerican region: Odebrecht.

 

The president of AmCham Guatemala Juan Pablo Carrasco and Odebrecht

Knowing all the crimes, suspicious acts, participation in corruption, links with known drug dealers and convicted functionaries, relationship with the profugue Harold Caballeros, Juan Pablo Carrasco has been recently re-elected president of AmCham Guatemala.

But the American Chamber of Commerce in Guatemala, supposedly represents all democracy and liberty values, supposedly represents the US government fight against corruption and combat against drug dealing. Joe Biden himself has said that fighting corruption is top priority for his government. 

So. What is happening then?