A lawyer shot and wounded, a presidential adviser under investigation, wads of cash, a suspected “bot farm” and corruption allegations at the highest levels of power: the scandal surrounding Fernando Cerimedo is embroiling Bolivia’s government and a host of right-wing politicians across Latin America.
The 45-year-old Argentine, who most recently advised Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, was arrested on August 18 in Santa Cruz, in eastern Bolivia.
The previous day, his partner, Bolivian lawyer Nadia Beller, who says she is pregnant with his child, was attacked by gunmen posing as food-delivery riders. She survived three gunshots and accused Cerimedo of planning the attack to prevent her from exposing his alleged ties to those in power.
The fall-out has spread to other countries where Cerimedo is known. He worked on the campaigns of Javier Milei in Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Nasry Asfura in Honduras, as well as Paz’s in Bolivia.
“What this character shows us is that ... the networks of far-right groups are transnational and strongly interconnected,” Marcela Ríos, regional director of International IDEA, an intergovernmental organisation that promotes democracy, told the AFP news agency.
Attempted femicide
Cerimedo, who is being investigated for “attempted femicide,” has been remanded in custody for six months. His lawyers maintain that he is innocent and reject claims that there is evidence linking him to the attack.
Investigators found messages on his phone which were cited in support of the prosecution’s request for his detention, according to a prosecutors’ report.
In one of them, someone told him on the night of the attack: “Brother, they’ve just shot her.”
A saved text message reads: “Either we get rid of her now or we’re screwed. Do you know anyone who can do the job?”
“May [the president] forgive me for not listening to him and getting involved with that crazy woman,” Cerimedo told the El Deber newspaper on Tuesday.
Additional allegations
The day after the attack, Beller spoke to the press from her hospital bed and made a series of allegations against Cerimedo, ranging from physical assault to complicity with drug-traffickers.
“If I don’t make this statement, because he wants to silence me, they will come and finish me off,” she told broadcaster DTV.
At a property belonging to Cerimedo in La Paz, a prosecutor found cash equivalent to US$43,000.
He is now also being investigated for illicit enrichment and money-laundering. He was therefore ordered into pre-trial detention for a second time and on Tuesday was transferred from the Santa Cruz prison to a facility in La Paz.
Following Beller’s allegation that he helped secure the release of seized aircraft, another case was opened against him over alleged protection of drug-trafficking activities.
Government under scrutiny
Beller, a 33-year-old lawyer and former political candidate for office, says she was a “witness” to alleged acts of corruption involving Paz’s government, his wife and his in-laws, with Cerimedo acting as an intermediary.
The allegations relate to the state management of fuel supplies and public-sector insurance contracts.
Paz, who took office in November, has played down his ties to Cerimedo.
“There was never a direct working relationship” with Cerimedo, he said, while acknowledging that the Argentine political consultant helped with his campaign and at the beginning of his administration.
Cerimedo found a “space” within Bolivia’s power structure “as a result of the lack of organisation and institutional structures surrounding Rodrigo Paz,” political scientist Daniela Osorio Michel told AFP.
Beller published photographs and messages in an attempt to contradict the president. In one photograph, Cerimedo appears alongside Paz and Bolivia’s foreign minister during an official meeting with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Latin American ramifications
Cerimedo first made his name in advertising and digital marketing. The founder of the Numen group and right-wing media outlet La Derecha Diario, he subsequently moved closer to right-wing candidates.
He worked on the campaigns of Milei and Bolsonaro in Brazil, where he was investigated over alleged participation in a “digital militia” aimed at disputing Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory in 2022.
Bolivian prosecutors found what appeared to be a “bot farm” at his home – devices used to operate anonymous accounts on social media.
In Chile, another investigation was opened days ago into alleged computer offences linked to the 2020 constitutional referendum campaign.
In Mexico, President Claudia Sheinbaum said the conservative newspaper he founded was an “operation to spread fake news.”
The press reported that he was in Peru for Keiko Fujimori’s inauguration in July, although she denied any connection with him.
Cerimedo “is a good example” of certain activities carried out in “opacity” and “shielded by political actors,” Ríos concluded.
– TIMES/AFP
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