Word: portillo
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Dates: during 2010-2019
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When he was President of Guatemala, from 2000 to 2004, Alfonso Portillo promised a crusade against one of the Central American country's biggest scourges: corruption. "Corruption and impunity are part of the perverse way our political, economic and social systems function," Portillo said in 2002. A year later, he even proposed letting the U.N. establish a commission in Guatemala to help the country?s fledgling judicial institutions root out the sleaze...
Guatemalan officials say Portillo's efforts paid off - at least in his case. Wednesday night, a panel of judges approved Portillo's extradition to the U.S. on charges that he laundered tens of millions of dollars that he had embezzled while he was President, including $2.5 million in donations from the Taiwanese government that was meant for children's schoolbooks. Portillo, who was captured by authorities in January near Guatemala's Caribbean coast days after a U.S. indictment was handed down, denies the accusations and calls them a political witch hunt by the U.S. and U.N. But to analysts like...