Honduras Seizes Businesses of Powerful Family Accused in U.S.

[Judi Lynn]

Honduras Seizes Businesses of Powerful Family Accused in U.S.
Associated Press
Updated Oct. 14, 2015 7:56 p.m. ET

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras—The Honduran government has seized 19 businesses belonging to Grupo Continental and five homes of company vice president Jaime Rosenthal and two other relatives accused by the U.S. of money laundering.

The government said in a statement Wednesday that it aimed to prevent the transfer of the assets during the investigation.

. . .

The government is also forcing the liquidation of the family’s Banco Continental. On Wednesday, furious clients demanded their savings and blocked some streets.

“We aren’t drug traffickers, we want our savings!” they chanted outside the bank’s largest office in Tegucigalpa. The bank has about 220,000 clients.

More:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/honduras-seizes-businesses-of-powerful-family-accused-in-u-s-1444864258

[Demeter]

1. Sounds real ugly

Do you have any info on this Rosenthal guy, Judi Lynn?

[MisterP]

2. I do know the Rosenthals are SPS's Liberal-Party elite, running a major paper there

they were against the 1980-4 strongman's bipartisan Moonie-funded Argentinean-tied APROH--but also against the pro-democracy LIBRE: they're closer to Clintonistas, basically running their party on "aren't you glad we're not the other party?" and doing whatever the Nationals wanted: they represent old-style politics--you vote for who your ancestors have since the 1880s, everyone agrees on keeping the political and economic system and the Army's aegis, and those traffickers sure give a lot of lempira

the headline's unsaid half is "and Gives it to Powerful Family Not Accused in U.S."

[Judi Lynn]

3. Hadn't heard of them before they got arrested in the U.S. Found these articles this month:

Honduras football boss Yankel Rosenthal charged in US
1 hour ago

The president of one of Honduras's most famous football clubs has been charged in the United States with drug trafficking and money laundering.

Yankel Rosenthal, a former minister of investment, was arrested on Tuesday after landing at Miami airport.

His cousin Yani and uncle Jaime Rolando, a four-time presidential candidate and newspaper owner, were also charged.

They come from one of the wealthiest families in Honduras.

More:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34471019

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Powerful Honduran businessman accused of money laundering

FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- One of Honduras's most powerful businessmen has been indicted in the United States for allegedly laundering money for drug traffickers.

The U.S. Justice Department released a statement Wednesday saying that Jaime Rolando Rosenthal Oliva, his son Yani Benjamin Rosenthal and nephew Yankel Rosenthal were named in the indictment and seven businesses were labelled "specially designated narcotics traffickers" under the Kingpin Act.

Yankel Rosenthal was arrested Tuesday at Miami's airport.

The statement said they "provide money laundering and other services that support the international narcotics trafficking activities of multiple Central American drug traffickers and their criminal organizations."

More:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/APFN_LT_HONDURAS_US_ARREST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-10-07-16-02-09

[center]

Jaime Rolando Rosenthal Olive, son Yani Benjamin Rosenthal, nephew Yankel Rosenthal



Father and son, "out to the ballgame." [/center]
[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Wed Oct 7, 2015 7:27pm EDT

U.S. charges Honduran soccer club chief with laundering drug money

MIAMI/NEW YORK | By Zachary Fagenson and Jonathan Stempel

The president of a top Honduras soccer club and two family members were charged by U.S. authorities on Wednesday with engineering a decade-long scheme to launder drug trafficking and foreign bribery proceeds through U.S. accounts.

The Rosenthal family, one of Honduras' wealthiest and most politically connected families, was accused of using their Grupo Continental conglomerate to run what a senior U.S. Department of the Treasury official called one of Central America's most significant money laundering networks.

Yankel Rosenthal, 46, president of Club Deportivo Marathon and until June a minister of investment in Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez's government, was arrested in Miami on Tuesday, and appeared in federal court there on Wednesday.

Also charged were his uncle Jaime Rosenthal, 79, who unsuccessfully tried to be a presidential candidate for Honduras' center-right Liberal party; Yani Rosenthal, 50, a former cabinet member and Jaime's son; and Andres Acosta Garcia, 40, a Grupo Continental lawyer.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/07/us-usa-honduras-soccer-crime-idUSKCN0S125620151007

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forest444 (1,226 posts)

His undeniable role in facilitating the drug rackets in Honduras is well known.

The above was simply the most concise description of it, that's all - plus the fact that the article is almost entirely a recapitulation of numerous actual events, rather than an opinion piece (which would indeed be objectionable, LaRouche or not).

Much of the blame pointed at Negroponte's for the rise of drug trafficking in Honduras has to do with his tenure as Ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985 (appointed by Reagan), when he played a key role in establishing that country as a base of operations for the Contras. Honduras' ongoing drug war can be directly traced to that policy.

So what was his role? While doubling the size of the local CIA office, in 1983 Negroponte had the local DEA office shuttered over the objections of the DEA itself and at a time when trafficking through Honduras was taking off. Why? Because these operations largely relied on drug trafficking for their financing.

There's no controversy about these facts; all Negroponte can do is plead ignorance - which is hard to believe considering how heavily the Bush regime relied on him during the Iraq War (making him Ambassador to Iraq and the first Director of National Intelligence, as you know).

For more on Negroponte's time as Ambassador of Honduras:

https://books.google.com/books?id=vgthWZ5KlskC&pg=PA51&dq=Peter+Dale+Scott+%2B+Bananas,+Cocaine&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CBwQ6AEwAGoVChMIhbqL-MaxyAIVSjCICh10bwNT#v=onepage&q=Peter%20Dale%20Scott%20%2B%20Bananas%2C%20Cocaine&f=false

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Sun Oct 11, 2015 11:49pm EDT

Honduran bank at center of money laundering case to be shut down

TEGUCIGALPA

Oct 11 Honduras' banking regulator said it will take control of Banco Continental and force its liquidation after the lender was accused by U.S. authorities of laundering the proceeds of drug money for more than a decade.

Last week, the U.S. Treasury Department classified seven businesses linked to several members of a prominent Honduran family, including Grupo Continental and its Banco Continental unit, as "specially designated narcotics traffickers," which allows for the freezing of assets under U.S. control.

Grupo Continental, headed by prominent banker and politician Jaime Rosenthal along with his son Yani, have been accused of leading one of Central America's most significant money laundering networks beginning in 2004 and continuing through last month.

Another family member, Yankel Rosenthal, the president of professional soccer team Club Deportivo Marathon and until June a minister of investment in President Juan Orlando Hernandez's government, was arrested in Miami last week in connection with the case.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/12/honduras-crime-banking-idUSL1N12B0I820151012?rpc=401

[center]~ ~ ~[/center]
Honduras prosecutor unaware of US money laundering case
Oct 8, 4:30 PM EDT
FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press


[font size=1]
FILE - In this Nov. 18, 2012 file photo, Yani Rosenthal walks with his wife Claudia,
after voting in the Liberal Party primary election, in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. The U.S.
Justice Department released a statement Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2015, saying that
Jaime Rolando Rosenthal Oliva, his son Yani Benjamin Rosenthal and nephew Yankel
Rosenthal, as well as seven businesses were labelled “specially designated
narcotics traffickers” under the Kingpin Act. (AP Photo/Fernando Antonio, File)
[/font]

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) -- Honduras' top prosecutor said Thursday he had no information about allegations of money laundering laid out in a U.S. indictment against three members of one of the country's most powerful business families.

"Regarding the actions of a New York court against the Rosenthals I cannot speak because I don't know the issue," Honduran Attorney General Oscar Chinchilla said.

He spoke a day after U.S. authorities revealed a federal indictment from New York against Jaime Rosenthal, his son Yani Rosenthal and his nephew Yankel Rosenthal, on money laundering charges.

Yankel Rosenthal was arrested Tuesday at the airport in Miami. On Wednesday, the U.S. Justice and Treasury departments said Wednesday that the family used its extensive business interests to launder money for Central American drug traffickers. Until June, Yankel Rosenthal had been a minister in President Juan Orlando Hernandez's government.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_HONDURAS_US_ARREST?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-10-08-16-00-10

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Looking forward to finding out more about this bunch of wealthy criminals. If the truth comes out, there's every assurance they are going to take down a whole lot of others with them! I'll be keeping my eyes open for more information.

[Demeter]

4. wish it would take out some of our ugly criminals

Reagan 's influence will never end.

[Judi Lynn]

5. Republicans are deeply tied up in Honduras. McCain has big ties to telecommunications in Honduras,

not to mention the right-wing presence in ownership of sweatshops.

Here's an older article which has useful stuff you might find interesting:

July 14, 2009
McCain and Honduras

by NIKOLAS KOZLOFF

A Behind the recent pressure campaign against the Zelaya regime in Honduras lurks a shadowy world of right wing foundations, lobbying groups and anti-Chávez figures. This tangled web of Washington, D.C. interests includes the Arcadia Foundation, a mysterious figure named Robert Carmona Borjas and former State Department official Otto Reich. What do all these organizations and characters have in common? In one way or another they are all tied back to Arizona Senator John McCain.

According to the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, it was Venezuelan lawyer Robert-Carmona Borjas who helped to draft some of the infamous anti-constitutional “Carmona decrees” after Hugo Chávez was overthrown in the April, 2002 military coup. After Chávez was returned to power Carmona Borjas fled to the United States where he found his calling as a leading anti-Chávez figure and, more recently, as a fierce critic of the Zelaya regime in Honduras.

In 2004, Carmona-Borjas was listed as part time faculty at the Department of Romance Languages and Literature at George Washington University and as recently as November, 2008 set up a class entitled “Political Management in Latin America” offered through the Graduate School of Political Management. According to the GW Hatchet, the local student paper, the class had a roster of right wing, free-trade boosting speakers including Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich, Leopoldo López, a Venezuelan politician, Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez and Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla.

According to the Hatchet, the class sought to “analyze Latin American governments that have failed social policies, which have led to anti-system political movements.” “Many Latin American countries have forged ties with re-emerging powers and countries in pursuit of nuclear capability,” Carmona-Borjas said, “ties that can endanger the interests of the United States in the region.”

But it was not part time teaching in D.C. which distinguished Carmona Borjas as a political player. No, it was the Venezuelan’s work as Vice President of the mysterious anti-corruption and watchdog outfit known as Arcadia Foundation which really set him apart. From his perch at Arcadia, Carmona-Borjas launched anti-corruption attacks against Honduras and the Zelaya regime. In particular he conducted a massive public relations campaign against Hondutel, the state telecommunications company in Honduras. In article after article published in the Central American media, Borjas-Carmona accused Hondutel of corruption.

The Right Wing Telecom Connection

The Venezuelan right winger was joined in his criticisms by Otto Reich, former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, State Department official under Bush, and foreign policy adviser for McCain’s 2008 campaign. Reich was linked to figures in the 2002 coup against Chávez and has worked as a corporate lobbyist for such firms as telecom giant AT&T. His firm, Otto Reich Associates, advises U.S. corporations in Latin America and promotes the American free trade agenda by fighting privatization.

I speculated before that Reich and Carmona-Borjas might have known of each other, and the George Washington University connection is now proof of that. What seems to have united both Reich and Carmona-Borjas was their interest in the telecommunications issue. That’s not too surprising in light of the history. Indeed, for McCain and his right wing ilk the telecom industry has been a central political focus. The Arizona Senator has had important historic ties to big corporations like AT&T, MCI and Qualcomm. In return for their financial contributions, McCain, who partly oversees the telecommunication industry in the Senate, has acted to protect and look out for the political and economic interests of the telecoms on Capitol Hill.

More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/14/mccain-and-honduras/

[Demeter]

6. So does Hillary, If I Recall Correctly

5 Things To Know About Hillary Clinton’s Role In Honduras Coup

http://xpatnation.co/5-things-to-know-about-hillary-clintons-role-in-honduras-coup/#.g74B38E4m

EXCLUSIVE: Hillary Clinton sold out Honduras: Lanny Davis, corporate cash, and the real story about the death of a Latin American democracy

http://www.salon.com/2015/06/08/exclusive_hillary_clinton_sold_out_honduras_lanny_davis_corporate_cash_and_the_real_story_about_the_death_of_a_latin_america_democracy/

...Though it’s less sexy than Benghazi, the crisis following a coup in Honduras in 2009 has Hillary Clinton’s fingerprints all over it, and her alleged cooperation with oligarchic elites during the affair does much to expose Clinton’s newfound, campaign-season progressive rhetoric as hollow. Moreover, the Honduran coup is something of a radioactive issue with fallout that touches many on Team Clinton, including husband Bill, once put into a full context.

In the 5 a.m. darkness of June 28, 2009, more than two hundred armed, masked soldiers stormed the house of Honduran president Manuel Zelaya. Within minutes Zelaya, still in his pajamas, was thrown into a van and taken to a military base used by the U.S., where he was flown out of the country.

It was a military coup, said the UN General Assembly and the Organization of American States (OAS). The entire EU recalled its countries’ ambassadors, as did Latin American nations. The United States did not, making it virtually the only nation of note to maintain diplomatic relations with the coup government. Though the White House and the Clinton State Department denounced only the second such coup in the Western Hemisphere since the Cold War, Washington hedged in a way that other governments did not. It began to feel like lip service being paid, not real concern.

Washington was dragging its feet, but even within the Obama administration a distinction was seen very early seen between the White House and Secretary Clinton’s State Department. Obama called Zelaya’s removal an illegal “coup” the next day, while Secretary Clinton’s response was described as “holding off on formally branding it a coup.” President Obama carefully avoided calling it a military coup, despite that being the international consensus, because the “military” modifier would have abruptly suspended US military aid to Honduras, an integral site for the US Southern Command, but Obama called for the reinstatementof the elected president of Honduras removed from his country by the military.

Clinton was far more circumspect, suspiciously so. In an evasive press corps appearance, Secretary Clinton responded with tortured answers on the situation in Honduras and said that State was “withholding any formal legal determination.” She did offer that the situation had “evolved into a coup,” as if an elected president removed in his pajamas at gunpoint and exiled to another country was not the subject of a coup at the moment armed soldiers enter his home.

It’s hard to see those early evasions by Clinton, though, as a Benghazi-like confusion in the fog of the moment. Nearly a month later, Secretary Clinton would call President Zelaya’s defiance of the coup government and return to Honduras “reckless” and damaging to “the broader effort to restore democratic and constitutional order in the Honduras crisis.” Thanks to Wikileaks, we now know from a cable from the Honduran embassy sent just the day prior how certain the State Department was that Zelaya’s removal was a cut-and-dried military coup: “The Embassy perspective is that there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch,” wrote Ambassador Hugo Llorens, reporting from on the ground in Tegucigalpa.

And even months later, with the increasingly violent and basic rights-denying coup government still in place, State Department spokesperson PJ Crowley would incredulously maintain, “We aren’t taking sides against the de facto regime versus Zelaya.”

It was becoming widely believed that the Clinton State Department, along with the right-wing in Washington, was working behind the scenes to make sure that President Zelaya would not return to office. This U.S. cabal was coordinating with those behind the coup, it was being rumored, to bring new elections to Honduras, conducted by an illegal coup government, which would effectively terminate the term of Zelaya, who was illegally deposed in the final year of his constitutionally mandated single term. All this as Honduras was “descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss,” as the coup government was seen to be actually committing crimes worthy of removal from power. Professor Dana Frank, an expert in recent Honduran history at UC Santa Cruz, would charge in the New York Times that the resulting “abyss” in Honduras was “in good part the State Department’s making.”

Though the case has been made, it’s impossible to accuse Clinton of foreknowledge of the coup. Likewise, no smoking gun exists to definitively conclude that Clinton and her associates actively and willfully acted to maintain the coup government in league with the elite and corporate interests, but an abundance of evidence, combined with what we know about Clintonite ideals in foreign policy and global trade, makes a case deserving of a response from one of two or three people expected to become the most powerful person on earth.

Clinton herself even gets dangerously close to confessing a role in keeping Zelaya out of office in her book “Hard Choices,” in which she discussed the hard choice to ignore the most basic tenets of democracy and international norms...

and many more citations are available.