“Idiots.” This is what the popular Salvadoran president Nayib Bukele called independent journalists in El Salvador after two journalistic investigations revealed how he and five other members of his family, his three brothers, his wife and his mother, acquired 34 new properties valued at nine million dollars during his first five years in the Government. Bukele reacted this Wednesday on his The publication revealed that his brother and main advisor, Karim Bukele, bought a building located in the historic center of San Salvador for $1.3 million dollars three months after the Legislative Assembly – controlled by the Bukele – approved a law that exempts of taxes to those who invest in that area. Bukele, who does not usually give interviews or respond to journalistic investigations, was upset on his favorite social network. “The 'journalists' paid by Soros were ordered to attack with alleged cases of corruption. None of their 'research' stands up to an accountant's analysis,” he wrote. “We are not perfect and I am sure there will be a lot to criticize and question. But corruption? «Don't be idiots,» the publication says.
Investments in the historic center
The historic center, where his brother has invested, is one of the Bukeles' biggest bets since they came to power. It is currently being remodeled and the central government has evicted thousands of street vendors in order to attract tourism and hotel investment. The vendors have reported that the Police displaced them under threat of imprisoning them under the Exception Regime if they did not leave. This measure, which was implemented in March 2022 with the aim of fulfilling Bukele's promise to dismantle the gangs, has served in practice to arrest anyone. Since he was mayor of the capital (2016-2019), Bukele bet for the rehabilitation of the historic center of San Salvador that for decades had been abandoned and uninhabitable. One of his first strategies was to make a secret agreement with the MS-13 and Barrio 18 gangs, which had controlled every block in the heart of San Salvador in order to remodel the parks and open new businesses. This Wednesday, one day after the publication that pointed out directly, Karim Bukele responded from his personal X account with an extensive text, arguing that, if he had had privileged information, “the logical thing would have been to buy SEVERAL buildings BEFORE they increased in price due to the interventions.” “I would have paid less than a quarter of what it cost me. But no, I waited for everything to happen, because it was the morally right thing to do. I did it under My NAME,» he wrote, capital letters included. On Thursday, Jaime Quintanilla, the main researcher of the publications, published on his X account that the company Lagencia SA de CV, with which Karim bought the building in the historic center , has not presented its balance sheets to the public registry, as required by law in El Salvador. The response from the presidential advisor on that social network did not take long to arrive: “I'm going to leave you the task so that you can keep yourself busy marinating in your 'abomination' towards us,” he said, before ensuring that he had moved a “small house that he inherited ” in a personal capacity in the name of the company to turn it into a business, as he did with other properties. After the publication, Quintanilla received dozens of offensive comments on X. The Association of Journalists of El Salvador raised an alert in this regard. “APES calls on the Government of President Bukele to stop stigmatizing, threatening and monitoring journalists whose only mission is to supervise the use and abuse of power in the Government,” he published on his official X account. “The APES will be Be alert to any action that puts the integrity of the journalist and the media alliance that published the investigation at risk,” he added.
The investigation that angered the Bukele
The first investigation published on September 20 revealed how the Bukele family multiplied twelve times the area of land it owned before coming to power and acquired 34 new luxury properties and coffee farms totaling 231 hectares, valued at 9.2 million. of dollars. The Bukele family made the purchases personally and through family businesses. According to the publication, with the purchase of the farm, “the Bukele entered the select group of the 2% of large coffee producers in El Salvador who own more than 100 arable blocks.” Among the new properties acquired by the Bukele family is a piece of land with a privileged view of Lake Coatepeque, one of the most exclusive tourist places in El Salvador, seven coffee farms, two fields and several luxury apartments. The investigation is supported by hundreds of pages of 74 public deeds and 40 company profiles. One of the main questions of the investigation into the land purchases made by the Bukeles is that at least two of their companies increased their assets exponentially. Some did it through mortgage loans in which private banks lent them millions of dollars without having enough capital to back the debt. After Karim's first reaction in X, this journalist asked him through the same social network how he explained the growth of one of its companies, Grupo Bukele SA de CV, which in 2019 had a capital of just 2,500 dollars and by 2023 it rose to 6.8 million. “That's the problem with writing from ignorance,” he responded. “When you create a company, you can do it with minimal capital, while the project is being carried out. (…) And then you invest in it, increasing the capital. In this case, a piece of land was purchased and moved to that company, then it was built on that property and therefore its capital increased,” he wrote. After his public response, this journalist spoke for 42 minutes by phone call with Karim Bukele. Throughout the conversation, the president's brother argued that the properties were acquired with capital movements that they already owned and with mortgage loans to companies with little capital using others from the same family valued at millions of dollars as collateral. The Bukele family is also the owner of the Yamaha franchise in El Salvador, a company that by 2018 had more than 8.6 million dollars under its belt. This journalist repeatedly asked Karim Bukele to give him a copy of the documents he They supported his claims, but he refused. It is also not possible to know the president's assets declarations because the Supreme Court of Justice has declared them confidential. Both the president and his brother published on Twitter that the published investigations would not withstand «the slightest analysis by an accountant.» This Thursday, this journalist proposed to Karim Bukele a personal meeting with one of his accountants to explain the purchases, but, after the request, he stopped responding to the messages.