Bananama Republic (http://www.bananamarepublic.com/category/corruption/page/5/)
Corruption in all its glory
Martinelli faces a deficit of $2.5 billion on a $15 billion budget. With $4.5 billion disappearing into the black hole called "corruption" and Panamanians willing to riot to prevent him from selling off state assets, the supermarket baron is effectively out of funding.
Martinelli is not an isolated phenomenon, but the product of a political and business environment that has been created and nurtured for decades by the same people who now pose as the saviors of democracy. It's a fight between factions of corrupt, rich elites, with ordinary Panamanians caught in the middle.
Years ago, Blandón & Young threatened your reporter. Now it's Martinelli threatening them, over the same Pronto Cash case. How times change!
Ron McGrew killed an innocent Panamanian. First the court convicted him to 5 years in jail, but now we read on the racist killer fanzine Panama Guide that the Supreme Court has apparently overturned that decision and dropped all charges.
If anything, the case demonstrated beyond doubt that Panama is not a safe place to bank and that various asset protection schemes using foundations and corporations aren't worth the paper their founding documents are printed on.
As a victim of a crime in Panama, you're pretty much screwed. You're even more screwed if expats help the criminals get away. Welcome to Taboga. Meet Cynthia Mulder, of the Cerrito Tropical Bed & Breakfast.
Martinelli has cancelled a trip to Mexico and remains invisible now that Italian prosecutors and witnesses have revealed details about him and others receiving massive bribes from Valter Lavitola.
Uh oh... The Italian justice people are going after our beloved president and Italian citizen Ricky Martinelli! Accusation: taking bribes.
In judicial independence, Panama ranks 16th out of 19 Latin American countries - only Nicaragua, Paraguay and Venezuela are worse. In the world, Panama occupies the 133th place out of 142 countries.
Lewis Navarro is business partner of one Lord Ashcroft, an important donor to the British Conservative Party and entangled in a myriad of financial and bribery scandals in Belize and the rest of the Caribbean.