Caribbean & Central America - October 2026

In August Rodrigo Arenas, a businessman and founder of digital media outlet República, made headlines amid claims that Guatemala’s congress president, Luis Contreras, of the opposition right-wing Compromiso, Renovación y Orden (Creo), and one of the main presidential contenders ahead of the June 2027 general election, Roberto Arzú, the son of the late former president Álvaro Arzú (1996-2000), had a plan to kill him and his editorial team over investigations carried out by the media outlet into narco-politics. It came the same month that República released a dossier mapping “the convergence of political power, organised-crime interests, narcotics-trafficking structures, territorial control, and political financing in Guatemala”. Arenas himself, whose ideology is widely described by the local media as far right, is not without controversy, having previously been linked to corruption. Nonetheless the alleged threat on his life and República report have reignited longstanding concerns regarding links between politicians and organised crime ahead of next year’s vote.

Arenas’ claims against Contreras and Arzú, who is not a sitting legislator, and is seeking a presidential bid for Cabal, the third largest grouping in the 160-member unicameral legislature with 18 seats, were first made public on 13 August and have been presented as a complaint before the attorney general’s office (MP). According to a 17 August República statement, Arzú and Contreras were responsible for planning an attack on Arenas, a plot which it claimed involved top narcotraffickers, hitmen contracted from San Marcos department and three opposition deputies: Luis Aguirre (Cabal); congress vice president Nery Ramos (Azul); and César Fión, an independent.

Entitled Narco-Political Forces in the Guatemalan State, the dossier itself was released on 19 August. The document, which República maintains should be understood as “a product of intelligence gathering and therefore not subject to journalistic standards of verification”, names numerous politicians as having been directly or indirectly captured by organised crime to form a so-called “narco-bloc” within Guatemala’s congress. It identifies Cabal as among those blocs linked to “drug-trafficking interests”. The party was founded in 2020 and registered in 2022 by Edmond Mulet, a career diplomat and two-time presidential candidate (2019 and 2023), on an “explicitly anti-corruption platform” although as detailed by República, between 2024 and 2026 the party was reconfigured and Mulet dislodged from the leadership.

The politicians named in Arenas’ complaint, which the MP has said it is investigating, have firmly rejected it. It is worth pointing out that the MP is now headed up by Gabriel Estuardo García Luna, who in May replaced the discredited María Consuelo Porras (2018-2026) – an appointment by reformist anti-corruption President Bernardo Arévalo which sparked optimism regarding the direction of anti-corruption efforts in the country [SSR-26-06]. On 19 August Arzú announced that he had filed a criminal complaint against Arenas in relation to the alleged death threat, stating that he “had never held any meeting with drug-trafficking kingpins for that purpose or any other”. Arzú also subsequently claimed that he had been informed by the MP that no criminal complaint had been brought by Arenas against him.

It should also be highlighted that Arenas himself is not without controversy. An 11 March report by international environmental NGO Global Witness, which lists República as a media outlet which has “sustained a long-running narrative” that land rights organisations such as indigenous organisation Comité Campesino del Altiplano (CCDA) are “violent land invaders”, highlights that Arenas has been linked to two corruption cases in Guatemala. It singles out one in which Arenas allegedly “channelled hundreds of thousands of US dollars” to the political movement of former president Jimmy Morales (2016-2020) without declaring the sum to the electoral authorities, thereby breaking a legal obligation. Global Witness adds that Arenas went on trial but proceedings stalled after the presiding magistrate Erika Aifán, a high-profile anti-corruption judge, fled Guatemala in 2022 amid a crackdown on independent judicial officials by Porras.

Nonetheless, the alleged death threats against Arenas have provoked widespread condemnation from various sectors. These include a leading private sector lobby, Comité de Asociaciones Agrícolas, Comerciales, Industriales y Financieras (Cacif), and think tank Fundación para el Desarrollo de Guatemala (Fundesa), as well as journalism lobbies such as the Guatemalan chamber of journalism (CGP), among others which are calling for the alleged plot to be investigated.

In a 14 August statement, the US embassy also signalled backing for Arenas, saying that, ahead of Guatemala’s June 2027 elections, in which Arévalo is constitutionally barred from seeking a further term, the US has “zero tolerance” toward “narcotrafficking and those who provide political cover”. So far, the leading presidential candidates ahead of next year have emerged as: Arzú (Cabal); right-wing businessman Carlos Pineda (Servir); Arévalo’s August 2023 run-off rival, establishment figure Sandra Torres, of the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), who is also widely mentioned in the dossier; and Neto Bran (Creo).

Dossier

According to the dossier, Arzú had connections to Francisco ‘Paco’ Domínguez, the leader of Los Caradura, a criminal structure in Guatemala City, who was killed in June 2025. It cites notarial deeds from March 2019 indicating that Arzú and Fabián Augusto Ranucci, an Argentine associate, owed Domínguez US$700,000 and Q4m (US$524,400) and highlights leaked recordings that emerged in 2025 which “revealed direct conversations in which Domínguez pressed Arzú for repayment”. According to the dossier, Arzú has “confirmed the authenticity of both the recordings and the deeds. His public position is that they relate to matters of some years ago and are therefore of no present relevance”.

The report also connects congress president Aguirre to the Mendoza clan, one of Guatemala’s oldest and most powerful criminal organisations, claiming that Aguirre’s established ranching and commercial networks and prominent position within the legislature are said to have made him “the principal intermediary between the interests of Los Mendoza and the Cabal party”. 

UNE

The República dossier identifies Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE), led by former first lady, three-time presidential candidate, and runner-up to Arévalo in the 2023 election, Sandra Torres, as another party compromised by its links with organised crime. It identifies Torres’ niece, María Marta Castañeda Torres, as having criminal connections, describing her as the girlfriend of Aldo Dupie Ochoa Mejía, alias ‘El Lobo’, the leader in Guatemala of Barrio 18 (M-18), one of the country’s two main gangs. In May 2026 she received a six-year prison sentence for money laundering and fraud.