US: Interim Bolivia Official Took Bribes in Tear Gas Deal
A former senior Bolivian official has been arrested for allegedly seeking at least $582,000 in kickbacks from a group of Florida-based businessmen accused of selling tear gas at inflated prices to the conservative government of former interim President Jeanine Áñez.
Sergio Rodrigo Méndez was arrested May 21 in Naples,
Florida, and charged with a single count of conspiring to commit money
laundering, according to a previously unreported federal complaint out of
Miami.
Three alleged co-conspirators, all of them dual
Bolivian-American citizens, were also detained, including the owner of Florida-based
supplier of police and military equipment and his father, who press accounts
indicate was charged two decades ago in Bolivia with weapons smuggling.
Méndez served as the chief of staff to Arturo Murillo, who
was interior minister in the Áñez government that took power in November 2019
after President Evo Morales stepped down amid violent protests disputing his
reelection to a fourth straight term.
As interior minister, Murillo led the deadly police response
to pro-Morales protesters that was called a “massacre” by the Inter-American
Commission on Human Rights. He also brought charges against Morales and his
allies for sedition and terrorism tied to the disturbances.
But the crackdown on Bolivia’s left backfired, and almost a
year later, Morales’ ally, Luis Arce, was elected and proceeded to lock up Áñez
and other officials tied to her short-lived rule, which had the support of the
Trump administration. Murillo was also charged in Bolivia, but has so far
evaded arrest and is believed to be living in the U.S. He is not named in the
U.S. federal complaint nor has he been charged.
According to investigators, Méndez along with a
“high-ranking official” in the Interior Ministry and another unnamed
co-conspirator in the Defense Ministry helped a Florida-based company obtain a
$5.6 million contract to supply tear gas and non-lethal equipment to the Áñez
government.
The company was allegedly owned by Bryan Berkman, who
purchased the tear gas in Brazil for a much-smaller sum of $3.3 million,
according to an affidavit from a Department of Homeland Security agent that
accompanies the complaint. Part of the profits allegedly were used to
coordinate bribe payments to Méndez and his co-conspirator in the Defense
Ministry, some of which were to be paid from a delivery of $700,000 in cash to
Bolivia.
While the American company is not named in the complaint,
Berkman is the chief executive of Taramac-based Bravo Tactical Solutions,
according to Florida's corporate registry. His father, Luis Berkman, who was
also arrested and charged, runs a separate Tamarac-based company called
International Defense Group.
Bolivian press reports indicate that the older Berkman was
arrested on weapons trafficking charges in 2001, accused of heading a criminal
ring that tried to smuggle military assault weapons to Paraguay. He was
declared a fugitive in 2013 without having been found guilty, according to a
Bolivian judicial filing.
The fourth co-defendant, Philip Lichtenfeld, like the
Berkmans, hails from Cochabamba, Bolivia, but had been living in Buenos Aires,
Argentina, prior to his surrender to U.S. authorities.
According to the complaint, evidence compiled from text
messages, emails and bank records show that Méndez was asked by a
co-conspirator to write a letter to the Brazilian tear gas manufacturer
insisting that Bolivia’s government would only purchase its products via the
Berkman-owned company.
But a January 2020 wire transfer of $5.6 million from
Bolivia’s Central Bank to a U.S. account belonging to the Berkman-owned company
was initially rejected, prompting Méndez to send an email to the U.S. bank to
try and clear the transaction.
Attorneys for Bryan Berkman and Lichtenfeld did not
immediately respond to a request for comment nor did a public defender who
represented Méndez at his arraignment in Tampa.
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