Guatemala Gold Mine Case Stalls as Prosecutors Promise Less Secrecy
GUATEMALA · JUSTICE
Key Facts
- —The country Guatemala, in Central America, spent two terms under an attorney general sanctioned by the US and EU, until May 2026.
- —Why it matters In December 2020 and January 2021, trucks removed rock from El Pato, a gold deposit licensed only for exploration.
- —What happened On 25 September, prosecutors said they would curb blanket case secrecy, the last known status of the El Pato file.
- —The businessman Plaza Pública’s 29 July investigation tied the trucks to Argentine businessman Fred Machado, who lent Guatemala’s then-president a plane.
- —The new prosecutor Gabriel García Luna, attorney general since 17 May, has called keeping cases secret from start to finish “practically intolerable”.
- —Still open Whether the El Pato file has moved, how much gold left and who ordered the digging are not known.
Trucks hauled rock from a Guatemala gold mine in late 2020 and early 2021, though it had no extraction licence. More than five years later no charges are public, and the prosecutors’ file was last reported sealed under case secrecy.
On Friday 25 September, the Public Ministry, Guatemala’s prosecution service, said it would limit that kind of blanket secrecy. In July, the Guatemalan site Plaza Pública linked the digging to Fred Machado, an Argentine who lent then-president Jimmy Morales a plane.
What happened at El Pato
El Pato II, the Guatemala gold mine in this case, lies between the eastern departments of Chiquimula and Jalapa. Chiquimula borders Honduras and El Salvador and has long been a smuggling route, notes La Astilla, a Central American investigative outlet.
The site held only an exploration licence, issued in 2003 to a subsidiary of Canada’s Goldex. A request to start extraction, filed in 2010, has never been resolved, according to Energy and Mines Ministry files.
Residents noticed trucks and unusual rumbling in December 2020 and January 2021, Plaza Pública reported. Community leader Emilio Álvarez said nearby houses cracked and machines ran 24 hours a day.
Pablo Aparicio, whose company represents the mining right, estimates that 100 to 200 tonnes of earth were removed. How much of that was gold, he said, he does not know.
How much gold is at stake
UN estimates from the late 1980s and early 1990s put the deposit at about 13.4 tonnes of gold, Plaza Pública reported. La Astilla put it at about 14 tonnes in March, citing another UN estimate.
Thirty years ago the deposit was valued at about US$165 million, according to the same July report. After the rise in gold prices, the outlet estimated, it could now be worth more than US$2 billion.
For scale, La Astilla noted in March that one tonne of gold was worth more than US$160 million at market prices. Both figures describe the deposit as a whole, not what the trucks took, which remains unknown.
Who was behind the trucks
Plaza Pública says the trucks belonged to Machado’s companies and carried rock about 300 kilometres to Alta Verapaz. The rock went to Machado’s firm Minas del Pueblo at San Miguel Tucurú, former congressman Carlos Barreda told the outlet.
Machado held no rights at El Pato; his only licence covered zinc, lead and silver at a project called La Meca I. Barreda, then a centre-left congressman, said a warehouse permit from the local mayor served as cover.
Atlas Universal S.A. requested that permit through Iván Morales, a Machado employee, according to the investigation. He is not reported to be related to the former president.
A US federal court filing describes Iván Morales as Machado’s trusted man and business partner, La Astilla reported. Machado has blamed him, telling Prensa Libre, a Guatemalan daily, in February 2025 that the worker “swindled” him.
“The mining project called Las Minas del Pueblo was legal,” Machado said, adding that Guatemala’s authorities had approved all its operations. He said the worker took a machine to Chiquimula and that he heard nothing more from him.
The plane and the former president
Machado told Prensa Libre that he met Morales, president from 2016 to 2020, by chance after Morales took office. The delegation was stranded in Miami, he said, and he lent it a plane to New York free of charge.
“They all got on the plane; there are photos; there were six or seven ministers,” Machado said. He said he met Morales twice and also lent a light aircraft to the president’s brother, Sammy Morales, for an emergency trip.
“I never gave a dollar or a quetzal to either of them,” Machado said of Morales and his successor, Alejandro Giammattei. He was answering Rodolfo Tailhade, an Argentine Peronist lawmaker who had accused him of funding both campaigns.
In a Facebook video on 17 February 2025, Morales called the claims a smokescreen, Emisoras Unidas reported. “I never received money from any foreigner for my campaign,” he said, La Hora reported, noting he did not mention Machado.
The Public Ministry closed an electoral-crimes probe in February 2025 into reports that Machado lent Morales a helicopter in the 2015 campaign. Prosecutors said he appeared in no donor records and had not entered Guatemala that year, La Hora reported.
What prosecutors did, and did not do
Energy and Mines officials told Congress on 1 February 2021 that they had filed a criminal complaint with the Public Ministry. They said an inspection had found “irrefutable evidence” that extraction was under way without a licence.
On 23 April 2021, environmental prosecutors raided Machado’s La Meca project in Alta Verapaz, photographing an airstrip and an aircraft. That was the last public statement on the case, the investigation found.
Aparicio said his company joined the complaint as a party and that he testified as a witness in 2021. “We never found out anything at all,” he said.
A Public Ministry spokeswoman told La Astilla, for a report published in March, that the file was “active” but under reserve. That means its contents are confidential, and she did not explain why the status had lasted five years.
Francisco Sandoval, an exiled former anti-corruption prosecutor, told La Astilla the law allows such secrecy for ten days, renewable once. “Keeping a file under reserve for years, without effective judicial control, is not the rule,” he said.
Fines, damage and a licence still alive
The Energy and Mines Ministry fined the licence holders 1 million quetzales (US$131,000), its press office told Plaza Pública. It also sanctioned Atlas Universal, and none of the fines had been paid by July, the outlet reported.
An Environment Ministry report of 6 August 2025 put environmental damage, excluding the gold, at 755,292.75 quetzales (US$98,900). Both conversions use the rate of 7.63 quetzales to the dollar on 29 September.
The exploration licence has never been cancelled and was still listed as valid in March, La Astilla found. That keeps the area closed to other applicants, and a ministry consultant met parties seeking to claim the file in June 2025.
Machado’s case in the United States
Machado, arrested in Argentina in April 2021, was extradited to the United States in November 2025. On 18 May 2026 he pleaded guilty in a Texas federal court to conspiracies to commit money laundering and wire fraud.
The scheme involved selling aircraft that were not available or belonged to others, La Nación and Infobae reported. Prosecutors dropped a drug-trafficking charge, and Judge Amos Mazzant formally accepted the plea in early August.
No sentencing date had been set by early August, and his lawyers hoped time served in Argentina and Oklahoma would count. The plea concerns aircraft sales fraud prosecuted in the United States, not the Guatemala gold mine.
In Argentina, José Luis Espert withdrew as a lead candidate for President Javier Milei’s party before the October 2025 election. He said a US$200,000 payment from Machado was a fee for advising Minas del Pueblo in Guatemala.
What comes next, and what it does not mean
Gabriel García Luna replaced Consuelo Porras as attorney general on 17 May 2026, the Associated Press reported. He ordered secrecy lifted on case files wherever that does not put investigations at risk.
In a review of his first four months on 25 September, he cited the need to rethink case secrecy, Prensa Libre reported. The ministry’s secretary general, Edwin Chavajay, announced circulars to limit its blanket use, Infobae reported.
Whether either step has reached the El Pato file is not known. Plaza Pública’s July report carried no comment from the ministry under its new leadership.
Neither investigation accuses Morales of taking part in the digging or of receiving gold. The claim that the trucks belonged to Machado’s companies rests on Plaza Pública and the people it quoted.
Manfredo Marroquín of the anti-corruption group Acción Ciudadana told Plaza Pública that impunity for figures like Machado reflects political ties. Prensa Libre, in an editorial after the plea, said his confession could justify a further inquiry into his links with Guatemala.
Frequently Asked Questions
What happened at the Guatemala gold mine?
Between December 2020 and January 2021, trucks removed rock from the El Pato deposit in eastern Guatemala, which held only an exploration licence. How much gold was taken, and who ordered it, is not known.
Who is Fred Machado?
Federico “Fred” Machado is an Argentine aviation businessman extradited to the United States in November 2025. He pleaded guilty in Texas in May 2026 to conspiracies to commit money laundering and wire fraud; no sentencing date had been made public by early August.
What is Guatemala’s Public Ministry?
It is the national prosecution service, led by an attorney general whom the president picks from six candidates proposed by a nominating commission. Gabriel García Luna has led it since 17 May 2026.
Is Jimmy Morales accused of wrongdoing at El Pato?
No. Machado says he lent Morales a plane in 2016, Morales denies taking foreign campaign money, and neither Plaza Pública nor La Astilla accuses him of involvement in the digging.
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