El Salvador seizes properties in case against ex-president

SAN SALVADOR: Prosecutors in El Salvador on Wednesday seized 61 properties linked to a massive corruption case against exiled former president Mauricio Funes, accused of embezzling $351 million from state coffers. State prosecutors said they seized real estate worth over $24 million, including shops, offices, luxury homes and a ranch.

“The properties are passing provisionally under the control of the state,” the attorney general´s office said in a statement. Nicaragua granted Funes and his family asylum in 2016, and this month refused a Salvadoran Supreme Court request to extradite the former president. Funes — president of the Central American country from 2009 until 2014 — had argued that he was the victim of political persecution.

The real estate seized on Wednesday was held in the name of relatives, friends and former employees of the former president, including his girlfriend Ada Mitchell Guzman and business magnate Miguel Menendez.