WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – The United States yesterday blacklisted the former Guatemalan infrastructure minister for his alleged involvement in “significant corruption,” U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement.
Alejandro Sinibaldi, former minister of communications, infrastructure and housing, was targeted under an act that allows the U.S. State Department to impose sanctions on foreign government officials involved in corruption.
The measures bar him, his wife and children from traveling to the United States.
Sinibaldi was found by U.N.-backed International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala to have run a scheme of money laundering. He served under former President Otto Perez Molina, who fell from power in 2015 following an investigation into his alleged involvement in a multibillion-dollar graft scheme.
“Today’s action reaffirms U.S. commitment to combating corruption in Guatemala and around the globe, and it sends a strong signal to other persons involved in significant corruption that they will not receive safe harbor in the United States,” said Pompeo, who called Sinibaldi a “fugitive from justice.”
