El Salvador orders graft arrest of ex-President Sanchez Ceren

Investigators say they will seek international help to locate and detain the former president and other officials.

El Salvador’s attorney general’s office has ordered the arrest of former President Salvador Sanchez Ceren and nine top officials from a past administration as part of a money laundering and corruption investigation. While Sanchez Ceren was out of the country, five former high-ranking members of former President Mauricio Funes’s government from 2009 to 2014 have been detained, the office said on Thursday. The wanted officials include former heads of the health, finance, labour, agriculture and environment ministries. Sanchez Ceren was vice president at the time of the alleged crimes, which involved money laundering, embezzlement and illicit enrichment after they were transferred unauthorised funds. He became president the next term.