US removes corruption sanctions against former Paraguayan president
The US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (‘OFAC’) removed former Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes and several of his companies from its sanctions list, lifting restrictions imposed in 2023 over allegations he engaged in rampant corruption that undermined democratic institutions.
OFAC delisted Cartes along with Bebidas USA Inc, Dominicana Acquisition, Frigorifico Chajha and tobacco company Tabacalera del Este from its Specially Designated Nationals list, according to a notice posted on the agency’s website.
‘With humility and satisfaction I receive the news of the lifting of the OFAC sanctions that weighed on me,’ Cartes said in a statement. ‘During these years I kept silent, out of respect for the institutions and because I always trusted that the truth would prevail. That day has finally arrived.’
OFAC designated Cartes in January 2023 under Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act targeting perpetrators of corruption worldwide. The action followed visa restrictions imposed by the State Department in July 2022.
Treasury had accused Cartes of engaging in corruption before, during and after his 2013-2018 presidential term. The designation alleged he paid party members up to $10,000 each to support his 2013 candidacy, made monthly cash bribes ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 to legislators in exchange for loyalty, and pledged $1 million in 2017 to buy votes for an unsuccessful constitutional reform allowing him to seek a second term.
In August 2024, OFAC expanded the sanctions by designating Tabacalera del Este, Cartes’s tobacco company, for making payments worth millions of dollars to him pursuant to a sales agreement.
Cartes thanked President Donald Trump’s administration for acting ‘with objectivity and a sense of justice in reviewing all the relevant circumstances and the merits of my defence’. He said he hopes to contribute to strengthening relations between Paraguay and the United States.
The Treasury Department did not give a reason for lifting the sanctions. But in an emailed statement, a State Department spokesperson said the sanctions were removed because ‘the United States government decided that under current circumstances, the sanctions on Cartes and his related businesses were no longer required to incentivize changes in behavior and were therefore not in the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States’.
Cartes currently serves as president of Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party. OFAC’s original designation also targeted then-Vice President Hugo Velazquez, who remains on the sanctions list.
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