MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Guatemalan president accused of money laundering is arrested

US indictment charges Alfonso Portillo with embezzling tens of millions of dollars

Ex-Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo, facing money-laundering charges in the United States was captured Tuesday on a farm on the Guatemalan coast, that country's attorney general said.

Portillo, who also faces charges in Guatemala and was out on bond at the time of the announcement of his US indictment, was arrested after authorities were tipped to his location, said Amilcar Velasquez.

Authorities were transferring him to the Guatemalan capital.

The US indictment charges Portillo with embezzling tens of millions of dollars in public funds, “a portion of which he then laundered through bank accounts located, among other places, in the United States and Europe.”

A grand jury indicted Portillo in U.S. District Court in New York.

Portillo allegedly engineered the embezzlement with co-conspirators that occurred from about 2000 through about 2003, the indictment said.

Prosecutors allege the money-laundering took place through at least 2006.

Portillo was president of Guatemala from 2000 to 2004.

Authorities in Guatemala started searching for him after the United States requested his extradition, a spokesman for the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala told news agencies.

Portillo, who also faces corruption charges in Guatemala travelled to Mexico at the end of his term in office in 2004, but was extradited to his country in 2008.