Bolivian attorney general blacklisted by U.S. is arrested for alleged money laundering and drug trafficking

Bolivia's attorney general arrested for alleged money laundering and drug trafficking

U.S.-sanctioned Bolivian Attorney General Roger Mariaca has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and drug trafficking, with police finding bundles of cash smuggled out of his house, the government said Thursday.

Mariaca was arrested on Wednesday night in the eastern city of Santa Cruz, two days after the United States revoked his visa due to his alleged links to drug trafficking.

"A criminal organization entrenched in the justice system has been dismantled," Interior Minister Marco Antonio Oviedo told a press conference.

Oviedo said that in the early hours of Thursday, four people were caught trying to remove bundles of cash from Mariaca's house aboard an ambulance.

A video released by the interior ministry showed police removing wads of cash from the ambulance's panels.

Oviedo said that the Attorney General's Office, "headed by Roger Mariaca, became a criminal organization dedicated to protecting, encouraging, and safeguarding narco-terrorism."

According to the Reuters news agency, a prosecutor's office official reported the "abduction" of Mariaca during a live broadcast. Local media said Mariaca had been detained at Viru Viru International Airport, Reuters reported.

The U.S. State Department said Monday that Mariaca received "bribes to facilitate drug trafficking and help violent criminals evade justice." Mariaca has denied the allegations.

Oviedo said that Mariaca's arrest took place with the "cooperation of the U.S. government" as part of the "fight against terrorism."

In total, four prosecutors, six employees of the public prosecutor's office and the four people found aboard the ambulance were arrested.

The raids come as Bolivia's center-right President Rodrigo Paz, who took office in November 2025, seeks to strengthen ties with the United States after two decades of socialist rule marked by mutual enmity.

On Monday, the U.S. revoked the visas of 12 Bolivian officials and nine other Bolivian nationals who do not currently have visas were rendered ineligible to receive them.

In March, Paz took Bolivia into the "Shield of the Americas," a U.S.-led alliance of right-wing Latin American governments to combat transnational organized crime.

"Mariaca is my friend"

Mariaca was appointed attorney general in October 2024.

The Attorney General's Office stated in a press release that, given Mariaca's "definitive absence," the next most senior public prosecutor, Luis Montano Morales, would replace him on an interim basis.

Mariaca's lawyer Romel Ipamo told local media that his client would "cooperate fully" with the investigation.

During Mariaca's tenure, Bolivian police captured Uruguayan drug trafficker Sebastian Marset earlier this year. Marset, who was on the U.S.' most-wanted fugitives list, was passed to agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration at the Santa Cruz airport, then put on a U.S. airplane, state TV showed. In March, he made his first appearance in a federal court in Virginia.

Local media on Wednesday broadcast a video purporting to show Marset on the day of his arrest declaring: "Mariaca is my friend."

AFP has been unable to verify the authenticity of the video.

Police also raided the headquarters of the public prosecutor's office in the southern city of Sucre, according to footage shared by the police on social media.

Surrounded by hooded police officers, Claudia Pardo, head of communications for the prosecutor's office, denounced the raid as "illegal."

She told AFP later that she was under arrest.

The public prosecutor's offices in Santa Cruz and La Paz were also targeted in the nationwide raids, according to images broadcast by local media.