Because of factors such as business closures and lack of opportunities, it is estimated that criminal activity costs Honduras and El Salvador 16% of GDP, and in the case of Guatemala, its losses could amount to 7% of its production.
In Central America, the human costs of crime remain one of the highest in the world. El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—referred to as the Northern Triangle— account for about four-and-a-half percent of homicides worldwide despite only having about one-half-percent of the world's population.
A raíz del robo de un contenedor que transportaba productos lácteos, la cámara del sector hizo un llamado a todos los gremios vinculados al comercio internacional y local, para que refuercen sus medidas de precaución.
In a statement, the Nicaraguan Chamber of the Dairy Sector (CANISLAC) reported that on Friday, December 13, 2019, the first container of Quesillo was stolen in the history of Nicaragua.
A report by InSight Crime highlights the homicide rate registered in Costa Rica in 2017, which was 12.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, the highest number in its history.
The report indicates that Costa Rica is a country that has traditionally been considered "peaceful," and in respect to the escalation of the homicide rate, an increase that local authorities attribute to organized crime, the report indicates that "... lack of retrospective and a vague methodology is weakening the authorities' attempts to attribute blame to organized crime."
The United States has renewed its travel alert, warning that the levels of violence and crime in the the department of Gracias a Dios are very high.
From a press release issued by the US Department of State:
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to carefully consider the risks of travel to the Department of Gracias a Dios in Honduras. In addition, the greater urban areas of San Pedro Sula, Tegucigalpa, and La Ceiba have notably high crime and violence rates. This replaces the Honduras Travel Warning dated August 5, 2016.
A list of people and companies involved in international money laundering includes brothers Abdul and Nidal Waked, another 6 individuals, and 68 companies, among which is Balboa Bank.
The businessmen Abdul and Nidal Waked and companies such as Grupo Wisa, Vida Panama and Balboa Bank, have been included in the "Clinton" list which indicates which people and related organizations are linked to money laundering and drug trafficking activities.
The Dutch Development Bank is making its exit from the country official and has suspended commitments and disbursements, including for a hydroelectric project promised for Agua Zarca.
"... Given the current situation, with ongoing violence, FMO decided to suspend all activities in Honduras, effective immediately. This means that we will not engage in new projects or commitments and that no disbursements will be made, including the Agua Zarca project."
The figure is an estimate made by the Intelligence Directorate in Costa Rica released by the US State Department, along with information that indicates a rise in criminal organizations based in the country, and little capacity to combat them.
Money laundering is a criminal activity that handles amounts that are difficult to measure. For example, the report "Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2004-2013" by Global Financial Integrity says that during the aforementioned 10 year period, the flow of illicit money from Costa Rica exceeded $11 billion, that is about $1.1 billion a year.
The complexity of drug cartels' internal structures, their strategies of "marketing and customer service" and the way they operate increasingly resemble those of large global corporations.
How are the Coca-Cola and McDonald's corporations similar to drugs cartels? Of course the products they sell are completely different, but the way the three try to position their products and brands, increase their market share and increase profits to generate more dividends to their shareholders, is almost the same.
The US Government has renewed its travel warning stating that the levels of violence and crime remain critically high, although they have decreased slightly over the last two years.
The unprecedented increase in violence in Costa Rica, once an oasis of peace in the region, is another sign of the failure of the traditional methods of fighting drugs.
EDITORIAL
More powerful than the Central American states, drug trafficking is on the rise not only in terms of an increased supply of drugs in the countries in the region, but through its permeation of institutions using the power of money and generating a growing culture of violence that is making Central America´s lack of a death penalty seem risible. Yes it does exist, but the worst part about it is that it is not institutionalized justice systems that implement it, but the mob bosses, pointing out -to ever younger executioners- the people who should be executed.
The Administrative Office of Seized Properties in Honduras will be responsible for overseeing the continued operations of the companies seized from Continental Group.
The Executive ordered the Administrative Office of Seized Property (OABI by its initials in Spanish) to be responsible for seeing that companies seized from the group continue to operate as normally as possible.
Assurance has been given that companies where Continental Group or its shareholders have a minority participation may continue to operate normally.
As outlined in an article on Televicentro.hn , the general coordinator of Government, Jorge Ramon Hernandez Alcerro, stated that "... 'there are over 40 companies' which have with less than 50 percent in shares of Continental Group, whose president is the banker and politician Jaime Rosenthal."
Diagram showing the people and companies identified by actions related to money laundering, according to the U.S. Department of the Treasury´s Office of Foreign Assets Control.
The US Treasury Department has advised that it will not sanction individuals or institutions participating in the liquidation provided that those transactions do not benefit any individual or entity other than those previously identified by the OFAC.
The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the Treasury Department of the United States has issued a statement regarding the decision of the Honduran authorities to liquidate Continental Bank, after identifying the institution and several of its executives as being involved in drug money laundering:
Money laundering has positive economic effect on economies, but also impoverishes the quality of institutions leading to dramatic effects on quality of life in society.
The excellent analysis by Norma Lezcano in his article on Estrategiaynegocios.net, on the US Treasury Department´s inclusion of members of the powerful Rosenthal family in the list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) can be extrapolated to all Central American countries, and is a warning to the governments of the region, where drug trafficking has ingratiated itself and is creeping through state institutions, weakening them by making them serve criminal aims, and preventing them from carrying out their duties properly.
Operating Company dedicated to the manufacture of gluten-free and sugar-free products, OHNE brand. The OHNE brand has 8 product lines: square bread, sweet...
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