Case 327: Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano

*** Content warnings: Gun violence *** Early on the morning of Sunday, May 10 2009, corporate attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano left home to take a bike ride around his neighbourhood in Guatemala City. Within minutes, he’d been shot dead. Rodrigo’s friends and family were left reeling by the violent murder, but their shock would only increase when a video emerged one day later of Rodrigo predicting his own murder… and naming the killer… --- Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/ Research & writing – Erin Munro Creative direction – Milly Raso Production & music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/ Audio editing – Anthony Telfer Sign up for Casefile Premium: Apple Premium https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/casefile-true-crime/id998568017?ign-itscg=30200S&ign-itsct=casefile_podcastsSpotify Premium https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/9gSwcv7USsbPatreon https://www.patreon.com/casefileFor all credits and sources, please visit https://casefilepodcast.com/case-327-rodrigo-rosenberg-marzano https://casefilepodcast.com/case-327-rodrigo-rosenberg-marzano/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  In early May of 2009, a prominent Guatemalan attorney named Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano began receiving threatening phone calls. The calls started on Tuesday, May 5, and always played out the same way. Rodrigo’s cellphone would ring, he would answer, and the person on the other line would issue a menacing message before terminating the call. These calls came through once or twice a day and were typically between 10 to 15 seconds long, just enough time to deliver a death threat. Sometimes the caller said nothing at all, they just left a heavy, drawn-out silence before hanging up.

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  Most disturbingly of all, sometimes Rodrigo’s phone would ring as soon as he returned home to his apartment after leaving work for the day. Just as he answered his phone, the person on the other end would hang up.

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  The caller didn’t block their number, and Rodrigo could see its unfamiliar digits appear on his phone screen each time they called. He jotted the number down and passed it on to a longtime friend and mentor, explaining that he was being stalked and his apartment was likely under surveillance. Other friends and family members of Rodrigo’s noticed how nervous he seemed during this time. His adult son Eduardo observed how Rodrigo had started looking over his shoulder every time he got into his car. On Saturday, May 9, five days into the threatening calls, Rodrigo invited Eduardo to take a

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  day trip with him to the pretty colonial city of Antigua, which was popular with tourists. Eduardo noticed how nervous his father seemed, dithering over which car they should take for the hour-long drive from Guatemala City, and then constantly glancing anxiously around him when they arrived at their destination.

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  The final threatening call from the mysterious phone number came through early the following morning of Sunday, May 10. Within minutes of receiving the call, Rodrigo would be dead.

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  The Republic of Guatemala is a Central American country located immediately south of Mexico. Rich in history and natural resources, its striking landscapes are dotted with volcanoes, rainforests, and sprawling plantations that grow coffee beans, cacao, bananas, and sugarcane. But the wealth of its land is not shared by the majority of its people. While Guatemala is relatively small in terms of size, its population is one of Central America's largest, and in 2009, roughly half of that population lived below the poverty line.

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  Colonization and exploitation of the country's natural resources have led to generations of Guatemalans suffering violence, political turmoil, and racism.

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  In 1954, the country's second-ever democratically-elected president was overthrown in a coup d'etat orchestrated by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and a multinational corporation called The United Fruit Company. They didn't approve of the employment and agrarian reforms being made by Guatemala's then-president. The United Fruit Company's profits from bananas produced and harvested in Guatemala were being impacted by the country's softening of exploitive labor practices.

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  Believing Guatemala's administration was too left-leaning and therefore communist in nature, the CIA installed a right-wing military dictatorship in the foreign country. This ultimately triggered a four-decades-long civil war between the military and leftist rebel groups.

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  More than 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the civil war, and more than 70,000 disappeared without a trace. At least 90% of the killings were committed by state military forces or paramilitary death squads, and every single Guatemalan was affected either directly or indirectly by the violence. The military dictatorship finally ended in 1985, with the civil war concluding a decade later, and a peace accord reached between the government and the rebels in 1996. But life didn't improve for many Guatemalans.

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  The conclusion of the war had sidelined soldiers and paramilitary units, so they transitioned from state-sanctioned violence to the illegal kind. They formed organized crime gangs known as Illegal clandestine security apparatuses, or SEAX, which trafficked drugs, facilitated illegal adoptions, crafted fake passports, kidnapped victims for ransom, embezzled and laundered money, and provided murder-for-hire services. These criminal networks even infiltrated government and law enforcement agencies, leading to corruption and chaos at the highest levels.

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  Instead of violence reducing after the war, it increased. In 2009, almost 15 years after the civil war ended, the country's homicide rate peaked, with 46 murders per 100,000 people. 98% of these crimes would go unsolved, with no arrests or resolution via the country's justice system. In 2007, one United Nations official remarked: "Guatemala is a good place to commit a murder, because you will almost certainly get away with it."

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  The citizens who suffered the most from Guatemala's instability and discord were members of the indigenous Mayan population, who experienced the brunt of the violence and criminality. Many Mayans also lived in impoverished conditions, suffering from income inequality, chronic malnutrition, and lack of education. Guatemala's upper class is mostly made up of European immigrants and their descendants. In 2009, 47-year-old corporate attorney Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano was a member of this elite group. Rodrigo was born six years after the CIA's installation of a dictatorship

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  toppled Guatemala into chaos, and his parents were very wealthy. His mother had inherited her money, while his father was a highly successful businessman. Their wealth allowed Rodrigo to attend the country's best schools, and then later study at England's University of Cambridge, as well as Harvard in the US.

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  But, even as a highly privileged individual, Rodrigo was impacted by the violence that was so prevalent around him. When he was 18 years old, his brother Bobby was kidnapped for ransom after being targeted as the child of a wealthy couple. Before Rodrigo's parents could exchange money for Bobby's release, his body was found off the side of a road outside of Guatemala City, the nation's capital where the family resided. Bobby's captors were never arrested or charged for his murder.

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  Despite this family tragedy, Rodrigo went on to obtain his bachelors and masters in law. In 1987, when he was still in his twenties, he co-founded a prestigious corporate law firm, making him well-known in business and legal circles. He also raised a family, marrying twice and fathering four children. Yet, by the spring of 2009, both of his marriages had ended in divorce, and he was living alone in a luxury apartment located in Guatemala City's affluent Zone 14 neighbourhood.

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  Life was comfortable, if not entirely smooth sailing. Rodrigo was still going through a difficult custody battle with his second wife, and his mother had recently died. But, on the whole, he was the picture of success when he started receiving threatening phone calls in early May 2009.

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  The calls over six consecutive days had left Rodrigo visibly rattled and impacted a day trip to Antigua with his son Eduardo on Saturday, May 9. He was back home at his apartment in Guatemala City that night and called a longtime friend to chat. Rodrigo told his friend, Aziza Musa, about the latest goings-on in his life, adding that he planned to go on a long bike ride the next morning to clear his head.

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  The next morning, he woke early. At 6:30, he received yet another threatening call from the unknown caller. Like all of the others, it was short and unsettling. Still, Rodrigo went about his morning as planned and called his personal driver at 7:58 a.m. to let him know he was headed out on a bike ride.

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  At about 8:05, he wheeled his bicycle out of his apartment building, mounted the bike, and cycled away along the two-lane, tree-lined street, dressed in navy shorts, a navy t-shirt, and white Adidas runners. He listened to music on an iPod as he rode several hundred meters down the street before turning onto a service road.

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  Shortly after this, a chauffeur named Luis Lopez Florián made his way over to Rodrigo's apartment. Luis had been Rodrigo's personal driver for a long time, and their relationship went beyond that of an employer and employee. Rodrigo considered Luis a trusted friend and a confidant, and the two were very close. As Luis drove down a service road near Rodrigo's home, he noticed a number of paramedics and police officers crowded around a figure lying on the ground.

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  It was Luis's boss, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano.

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  He had been shot five times with a 9mm handgun, three times in the head, once in the neck, and once in the back. Luis phoned Rodrigo's son Eduardo and told him to go immediately to his father's apartment. He didn't want the young man stumbling upon the grisly crime scene.

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  Luis refused to tell Eduardo what had happened, but made it clear there was an emergency. Eduardo hung up and began dressing in a panic before calling Luis back and demanding answers. “Is my dad dad?” Eduardo asked. “Yes,” replied Luis.

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  The Rosenberg family was devastated by the sudden and brutal murder of Rodrigo, but quickly set about making plans for his funeral. The service was held the following day of Monday, May 11, at a cemetery on the outskirts of Guatemala City. May is the beginning of the rainy season in Guatemala, and heavy clouds gathered overhead as the mourners made their way across the cemetery’s trimmed green lawns. Organizers played “Blues for Salvador,” a song by the American rock band Santana that Rodrigo had always said he wanted to play at his funeral. His son Eduardo gave a moving eulogy wherein he thanked everyone for attending and helping

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  the family as they began their grieving process. Towards the end of the funeral, as Rodrigo’s casket was being lowered into the ground, a man named Luis Mendez Abel stepped forward and requested permission to speak.

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  Luis Mendez Abel was a longtime friend of Rodrigo’s, as well as his mentor and confidant. The older man had known Rodrigo since he was a boy and had helped find Rodrigo’s brother’s remains after he was kidnapped.

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  Luis was holding a bag filled with the DVDs in blank cases. He announced to the crowd of mourners: “All of us who are here loved Rodrigo very much, and all of you are wondering why someone like Rodrigo, who never harmed anyone, was murdered.” Well, Rodrigo left me with the answer: “If you want to know the truth about what happened to him, then here is his testimony.”

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  He held up the DVDs, adding that anyone who wanted a copy could take one. Many onlookers took Luis up on the offer, grabbing a DVD in the hopes that it might answer the mystery of Rodrigo’s murder. Those who took one and watched it upon returning home were first met with the sight of Rodrigo, alive and well, and seated behind a desk. A microphone was set up on the desk, and a dark blue sheet or curtain had been hung up behind Rodrigo. It looked like an amateur setup, but Rodrigo had clearly taken care with his appearance: dressed in a navy suit, a white shirt, and a pale blue tie.

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  His dark hair, balding on top, was neatly combed. As soon as the video began, the 47-year-old lawyer gave a quick nod, then began to speak: “Good afternoon. My name is Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, and unfortunately, if you are currently watching or listening to this message, it’s because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom.”

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  57-year-old President Alvaro Colom had been the leader of Guatemala for just over a year. After winning the nation’s presidential election in November 2007, he took office the following January. Colom’s election was a significant moment for Guatemala. It was the first time that a left-leaning politician had been in charge of the country since the 1954 coup d’etat. Colom had won by focusing on winning votes from Guatemala’s poorer rural areas, ultimately defeating his opponent, a former general who had overseen military intelligence. The election had been violent.

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  More than fifty local candidates and party activists were killed throughout the campaign, and President Colom’s own campaign manager almost died when several grenades were thrown at his motorcade. After taking office, Colom had vowed to end Guatemala’s longstanding problems with violence and corruption, but his own administration had also been plagued with corruption allegations. Two of his interior ministers were indicted on corruption charges, while a third was killed in a mysterious helicopter accident. Colom’s wife, Sandra, Guatemala’s first lady and a politician in her own right, was even suspected of corruption and money laundering after she refused to allow the

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  auditing of social programs she oversaw. Nevertheless, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano’s declaration that if he were to die, then the president was to blame, was shocking. As the testimony he’d recorded before his murder continued, Rodrigo explained why he had been targeted. He had knowledge of a far-reaching conspiracy that had resulted in others being killed as well, including one of his own clients.

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  Khalil Musa had been a wealthy client of Rodrigo’s and a member of Guatemala’s elite. He had immigrated to Guatemala from Lebanon in 1949 when he was just seventeen years old, and initially worked as a labourer picking coffee beans alongside Mayan peasants. Over the years, Khalil learnt Spanish, married and started a family, before later opening a textile factory and becoming a coffee producer.

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  His businesses took off, and Khalil Musa became a captain of industry who was well-known and respected for his honesty and integrity.

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  By 2008, he was in his mid-seventies and in the process of handing over his business to his two daughters, Aziza and Marjorie. Khalil wanted to spend more time enjoying the life he'd built and bonding with his young grandchildren. But, an opportunity to keep contributing to Guatemala more broadly arose when Khalil was offered a position on the board of Ana Cafe, Guatemala's National Coffee Association. Khalil had spent many years working alongside the labourers who picked Guatemala's coffee beans, and was eager to take on the role. The only problem was that he'd also have to serve on the board of Ban Rurall, Guatemala's Rural Development Bank.

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  Ban Rurall provided funds for the rural and micro enterprise sector in Guatemala, and while it was a private business, thirty percent of its shares were owned by the government, giving them three seats on the board of directors.

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  Khalil was far less enthusiastic about this part of the offer. While he was eager to serve Guatemala's coffee sector, he had little interest in Ban Rurall.

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  Khalil had discussed the matter with his lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, in December of 2008, and sought his advice.

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  Rodrigo was opposed to getting involved with Guatemalan politics, and told Khalil as much. Plus, there were rumours that Ban Rurall was rife with embezzlement and money laundering scandals. Nevertheless, Khalil accepted both nominations, seeing it as his duty to give back to the country that had given him so much.

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  On Tuesday, April 14, 2009, Khalil got up early and went to his textile factory, as was his routine. Every day, he would return home to eat lunch before heading back to work. Usually, his oldest daughter, Aziza, drove him home, but on this particular day, she was in the middle of a long-distance phone call to Lebanon. She asked her sister, forty-two-year-old Marjorie, to drive their father instead, while she wrapped up her call.

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  Khalil and Marjorie, who was a married mother of two and her father's favourite, headed down to Marjorie's green station wagon at 12:50pm. They both got in and Marjorie drove them out of the factory parking lot.

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  They headed down a busy street that was full of traffic and dotted with street vendors. About five blocks from the factory, Marjorie braked at an intersection. Suddenly, a motorcycle sped up to the passenger side of the car and pulled over. Its rider hopped off the bike and walked straight up to the car window. Without hesitation, he pulled out a gun and fired nine shots through the passenger window in the vehicle. Then the rider jumped back on his motorbike and sped away. Khalil Musa had been hit by each of the nine shots and was dead.

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  One of the bullets had travelled through him and then struck Marjorie in her aorta, killing her too. When Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano heard of the execution-style slayings that same day, he was devastated. It was clear Khalil had been the target of the attack and Marjorie was collateral damage. Rodrigo was certain Khalil had been murdered to prevent him from joining Ban Rurel's board, where he would have no doubt uncovered embezzlement and government corruption. Khalil Musa was renowned for his integrity and would not have stood for such abuses of power.

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  Rodrigo deeply regretted not urging Khalil more strongly against accepting the nominations.

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  Rodrigo wasn't the only high-profile Guatemalan who was outraged and distraught by the double homicide. Shortly after the Musas were murdered, business leaders held a press conference declaring that the public execution of the father and daughter was another sign of how helpless Guatemalans were. They demanded a thorough investigation of the murders by the authorities.

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  Rodrigo had no faith in Guatemala’s judicial system and told family and friends that the case would never be solved. He had no doubt that powerful forces were behind the crime. This meant that the criminal organisations that had infiltrated Guatemala’s government would block any attempted investigation and destroy evidence.

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  Determined that the case wouldn’t go unresolved like the majority of Guatemalan murders, Rodrigo decided to launch an investigation of his own.

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• 28:12Speaker 00

  Rodrigo approached his friend and mentor, Luis Mendez Abel, and asked for his help in trying to solve the case. Luis agreed. He was well-placed to assist Rodrigo, as Luis also happened to have been Guatemala's most infamous spy. He owned a clothing shop called Boutique Emilio, out of which he operated a clandestine intelligence unit he dubbed "The Little Office." Luis would later tell people he worked to solve kidnappings and murders that the officials failed to investigate, just as he'd helped find Rodrigo's murdered brother decades earlier.

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  He had also advised several Guatemalan presidents, including the most recently-elected Alvaro Colom. Luis had contacts everywhere.

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  Luis and Rodrigo were able to obtain security footage from the Musa's textile factory, so they could replay what had happened immediately preceding the killings. They noticed that a truck had been parked in front of the factory, and the driver kept getting out of the vehicle to look down the road. He was clearly acting as a lookout. After cameras captured Khalil and Marjorie getting into Marjorie's car and driving away, they also caught a hit squad following closely behind on motorcycles. Rodrigo spoke with Khalil Musa's surviving daughter, Aziza, who was also a friend of his. She told him that her father had received thinly veiled threats

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  from powerful individuals after being offered the board nominations. Officials connected to Ban Rurall and Anna Caffey strongly and repeatedly advised Khalil Musa against accepting the positions. One individual sent him a link to a story about a coffee farm that had been burnt down after its owner started meddling in board dealings. Eventually, the threats became more overt and violent, as Khalil received text messages and phone calls threatening his life. Rodrigo gained access to Khalil's personal papers and found documents relating to the appointments. One was a copy of a letter Khalil had sent to a group of people

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  associated with Ban Rurall, in which he stated that he would not tolerate messages filled with double meaning, writing: "I protect myself from my enemies."

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  As Rodrigo continued digging into the Musa case, he started receiving death threats of his own in early May, less than a month after the murders. He decided that he needed to record a statement that could be shared in the event of his death, so that the public would know what he had uncovered. While seated at his desk he'd set up to be filmed at, Rodrigo explained that during the course of his investigation, he had found documents and evidence proving that the Musa murders went all the way to the top. The president, Alvaro Colom, his wife Sandra, and the president's private secretary Gustavo Alejos had been embezzling and laundering money from Ban Rurall

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  alongside other members of their administration. Knowing that Khalil Musa would speak out against this corruption if he joined the board, they had orchestrated his murder.

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  In total, the video Rodrigo had recorded went for 18 minutes. As well as being an explanation for why he might be killed, it was an impassioned plea to Guatemalans to fight for change in their country by speaking out against its long entrenched corruption. “It’s the same story we’ve been hearing and repeating in recent years,” Rodrigo stated. “And us Guatemalans continue to do nothing, because there’s nothing left to do, because we can’t do anything. ‘What can I do?’ we say. But we have to do something, and the only way to do something is to say what we already know.”

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  Rodrigo repeatedly demanded President Alvaro Colom’s resignation and imprisonment and urged the country’s vice president, whom he said was honourable, to take over the leadership. “We can’t allow Guatemala to keep falling into the hands of these people,” he said. “It’s our country, it belongs to us, not to thieves, killers, and drug dealers. Guatemala is not theirs. Let’s not keep giving it to them.”

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  He concluded with a prediction that the government would try to conceal the truth he was revealing, stating: “Ladies and gentlemen, my death has a first and a last name. They will try to sully the name of Khalil Musa, Marjorie Musa, and will try to make up whatever they feel like making up. The one and only truth that matters is that if you’re watching and hearing this message, it is because I was killed by Alvaro Colom and Sandra de Colom. Guatemalans, it’s time. Please, it’s time. Good evening.”

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  It didn’t take long for the video to spread from those who’d received copies at Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano’s funeral. It was broadcast on every television news channel that evening of Monday, May 11, just the hours after Rodrigo was buried. At 10:29 that night, it was uploaded to the YouTube account of Guatemala’s leading newspaper, El Periodico. By the next day, it had gone viral, and so many people went online to watch the video that servers crashed.

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  The reaction was immediate. By the afternoon of Tuesday, May 12, protests had erupted in the streets of Guatemala City in response to Rodrigo’s claims. Thousands of people, most of them young adults from Guatemala’s conservative upper class, gathered in squares and shouted chants directed at President Alvaro Colom, such as: “Murderer, murderer!” and “Resign, resign!” The protesters wore white t-shirts as a symbolic statement against dirty politics. They held up signs that read: “I am Rodrigo, we want justice!” “Rodrigo, thanks for waking us up!” “No more violence!”

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  and “Sandra and Colom, to resign!”

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  The leader of Guatemala’s opposition party, General Otto Perez Malina, spoke to journalists, saying: “We are here to demand justice. We want a transparent investigation. The only way for that to happen is if the president agrees to stand down.” Others agreed with him, arguing that Rodrigo’s murder couldn’t be properly investigated while its main suspect remained leader of the country.

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  The demonstrations grew over the following days, with thousands and thousands of people cramming into Guatemala City’s largest public square. Rodrigo’s video was projected onto a large movie screen that someone had set up, and played repeatedly on a loop, with the sound turned up loud enough so that the entire crowd could hear his voice. A shrine was erected at the site where he was murdered, with a large wooden cross, flowers, and photos of the deceased lawyer. Handwritten notes and signs were also left, including one that read: “You didn’t die in vain.”

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  The internet became a space to protest too, with posts spreading across Facebook and Twitter denouncing the Guatemalan president as a murderer. One young man was arrested after tweeting: “The first concrete action should be to take cash out of Ban Rurel and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt.”

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  As the protests grew, so did the Guatemalan government’s panic. Just days earlier, on Monday, May 11, President Alvaro Colom had been in the middle of a meeting that was suddenly interrupted by his private secretary, Gustavo Alejos. Gustavo had just received a call from his cousin, who had been at Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano’s funeral that same day. Gustavo’s cousin told him how a friend of Rodrigo’s had claimed that the lawyer knew the reason for his own murder, and had video evidence to prove it. The cousin had taken one of the DVDs being handed out, and was rushing to the president’s office at that exact moment.

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  President Colom and his inner circle all gathered in his office to view the recording. All of them were left stunned by the end. Gustavo Alejos, who was one of the administration members Rodrigo had accused of murder, called his wife and told her to leave the country with their son. Then he offered his resignation to the president. The president refused to accept it, assuring Gustavo they would survive any ensuing storm. Issuing a short statement via two aides who delivered his words to reporters, the president denounced Rodrigo’s accusations as false.

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  The brevity of his response and the fact that the president hadn’t even appeared himself seemed to enrage the public further. Within forty-eight hours Guatemala was engulfed by chaos. President Colom agreed to give a televised interview with the news network CNN, but looked scared throughout the entire appearance, often blinking rapidly. He didn’t look like someone who was being honest. The editor of the newspaper El Periodico wrote in response: “I can’t help but express the repugnance I felt during the declarations of President Alvaro Colom.

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  The only thing missing now is for the president and his henchmen to say that it was Rodrigo himself who immolated himself, kamikaze style, in order to discredit the government, and that he himself paid the assassins to murder him.” Nobody trusted Guatemalan authorities to investigate the very crime they were accused of committing. The US ambassador to Guatemala urged President Colom to hand over the investigation to the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, or CSIG, a UN-backed organization created just three years earlier.

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  CSIG was formed as a way to fight Guatemala’s rampant corruption and systemic violence problem. Its members were judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement officers from all over the world who investigated high-profile crimes. They worked within Guatemala’s legal system to prosecute members of organized crime and to remove their presence from the government.

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  On Tuesday, May 12, just two days after Rodrigo’s murder, the case was referred to CICIG. They had a mammoth task on their hands, with publications such as The New Yorker and The Economist declaring that the fate of Guatemala’s democracy depended entirely on Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano’s true murderers being identified and brought to justice.

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  CICIG was led by 51-year-old Carlos Castrasana, a Spanish former prosecutor and judge who would be responsible for the investigation. Carlos had moved to Guatemala to head up CICIG and had barely seen the country since arriving. Due to the nature of his work, his life was often at risk, and he had a team of internationally recruited bodyguards who accompanied him everywhere. Carlos resided in a room above his office in CICIG’s compound, and whenever he left, he had to travel in armour-plated vehicles. Carlos took his job seriously and was aware of its risks.

• 41:05Speaker 00

  Every morning and evening, his office was checked for covert surveillance equipment, just in case there was a mole inside CICIG leaking information. He would only discuss sensitive matters while a white noise machine was operating to muffle any audio if he was being secretly recorded.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  After being assigned Rodrigo’s case, Carlos Castrasana met with Rodrigo’s son, Eduardo, assuring the young man: “I give you my word that, if we have to, we will bring down the president and impeach him.” Eduardo trusted Carlos and willingly handed over his father’s office computer and his personal laptop for examination.

• 41:50Speaker 00

  Carlos Castrassana selected about a dozen of CIC's top investigators to work closely alongside him, telling them: "This is the most important case of this commission." Almost 300 other officials would operate as functionaries in the investigation as well. They came from countries all over the world, including Canada, France, Costa Rica, Italy, and Sweden.

• 42:18Speaker 00

  One of the first things the investigative team did was check CCTV footage from cameras operating in the area where Rodrigo had been on the morning of his murder. As Rodrigo resided in a wealthy neighborhood with plenty of security cameras, there was lots of footage to check. In total, four separate cameras had footage of the events leading up to the crime. While reviewing this footage, the investigators noticed that a number of vehicles were clearly circling the block for around 30 minutes prior to the attack against Rodrigo. At about 8:00 a.m., they seemed to assume positions.

• 43:00Speaker 00

  A black Mazda 6 idled out the front of Rodrigo's apartment building. The car's number plate wasn't visible, but it had several distinctive features: it had red markings on its hubcaps, a rear spoiler, and a sticker over the petrol cap. At around 8:05 a.m., Rodrigo emerged from his apartment building and cycled away on his bike. The car followed. At 8:07, a camera filmed Rodrigo cycling past. The black Mazda followed, 1 minute and 36 seconds later. Then another camera captured Rodrigo again, cycling past a parked car.

• 43:45Speaker 00

  The Mazda appeared 1 minute and 26 seconds later, getting closer.

• 43:52Speaker 00

  The Mazda continued to tail Rodrigo until he turned onto the service road where his body was later found. As there were no cameras along that service road, the murder itself hadn't been recorded, nor had any eyewitnesses come forward. But presumably, the Mazda had dropped off after radioing a co-conspirator an update on Rodrigo's location. That co-conspirator had then driven into the service road and delivered the five fatal shots.

• 44:26Speaker 00

  When Rodrigo's body was discovered, he was lying on his back on a grassy embankment that flanked the right side of the road, his ankles dangling over the curb. His bike lay abandoned on the road. It was on its side, facing the other way from Rodrigo, with its handlebars towards the street. This positioning indicated that at the time Rodrigo was shot, he'd no longer been riding his bike. If he'd been shot while cycling, then the bike would have fallen in the same direction as him, backwards instead of forwards. Rodrigo's position was consistent with him having hopped off the bicycle and sitting on the curb, perhaps to take a phone call.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  He had also been listening to his iPod at the time. Near to where Rodrigo's body was found were several deeper grooves in the dirt next to the road. They looked like tyre tracks.

• 45:28Speaker 00

  With a clearer idea of the crime scene, the investigators turned their attention to the video Rodrigo had recorded. It was clear he hadn't filmed it alone. At the end of the video, a second person who was off-camera could be heard switching off the recording equipment. Not long after the murder, two men came forward and admitted to helping Rodrigo film the testimony. One was his longtime friend and mentor, Luis Mendez Arbel, the man who had handed out copies of the testimony at Rodrigo's funeral. Luis's boutique had been used as the set for the video.

• 46:09Speaker 00

  Another man who had assisted with the recording was a journalist and a former presidential candidate named Mario David Garcia. Both men vehemently denied having anything to do with the crime. They said that Rodrigo had come to them with his accusations against the government, and they had merely helped him. Mario David Garcia even noted that Rodrigo had planned to appear on his radio show on Monday, May 11, to go public with his allegations against President Colom. But his murder had prevented that appearance from happening.

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Meanwhile, Carlos Castrasana was beginning to suspect that President Colom's administration was interfering with the investigation. When Carlos had taken on the case, he'd told the president that he would need complete independence in order to complete a thorough investigation. But Carlos suspected the president was ignoring his demand. On one occasion, C-SIG agents had been canvassing Rodrigo's neighbourhood when they noticed an unmarked vehicle following them. One of the car's occupants was taking photographs of them. Several weeks later, agents were meeting with a possible witness in the lobby of a hotel.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Their meeting was abruptly interrupted by swarms of police officers bursting into the lobby and attempting to arrest the witness.

• 47:41Speaker 00

  The C-SIG agents managed to quickly usher the witness into one of the hotel's rooms. They feared that if the police arrested him, he might never be seen again.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Half expecting the police to open fire in their desperation to take the witness, one of the agents called out: "You will have to kill us all." As they attempted to manage the situation, Carlos Castrasana was able to call the Vice President and the head of the National Police, who told the police to withdraw. It turned out that the potential witness knew nothing of note, but it was clear someone had thought that he did.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  CIC agents soon caught wind of another possible witness when a government minister notified Carlos Castro Senna that he knew someone who could blow the case wide open. Investigators met with this new witness at a soccer field near the Mexican border. He claimed to be associated with a gang called Pythagoras, which had been hired to kill Rodrigo for 180,000 US dollars. The witness said he was close to the gang's leader and was terrified for his life, adding: “I do not want to continue to kill people. This will explode because there are politicians involved.”

• 49:08Speaker 00

  The politicians the witness implicated were not from the Colom administration, but from the opposition. The vice presidential candidate to General Otto Perez Malina, who had lost to President Colom at the previous election, was named as being involved. As the agents continued to speak with the witness at the soccer field, a crowd of journalists suddenly appeared and interrupted the interview. They published articles about the witness’s allegations that it was actually the opposition party and not the government who had murdered Rodrigo.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  The unexpected appearance of reporters at the secret meeting was frustrating to Carlos Castro Senna, especially as he told President Colom to ensure no one from the media knew about it.

• 49:59Speaker 00

  When the CIC agents looked into the witness’s allegations, his entire story quickly fell apart. There was no evidence to support his claims, and he eventually admitted that he’d made it all up, stating: “I received a call from a member of the government saying ‘I have a job for you’, and he offered me money to give false evidence.” He alleged that Colom’s spokesman and the First Lady were part of the scheme. All of this misdirection only made Carlos Castro Senna more suspicious that the government was trying to cover something up.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  He sent a formal complaint to the government about their meddling, and also forwarded it to the United Nations. From that moment on, the CCIG agents were left alone to complete their investigation.

• 50:56Speaker 00

  They turned their attention to the black Mazda 6 that had been captured on security cameras trailing Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano on the morning of his murder. The vehicle had several notable features, including red rims on the hubcaps, a rear spoiler, and a sticker over the petrol cap. CCIG agents obtained a record of all black Mazda 6s registered in Guatemala. There were only 50 in the entire country.

• 51:26Speaker 00

  Over the next few weeks, CCIG agents tracked down each and every one and carefully photographed them, looking for the right car. They finally found it at a home just outside of Guatemala City. The car had the exact same distinctive features as the vehicle captured on camera. It was registered to a 33-year-old named William Hilberto Santos Diva.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Notably, Santos was a former member of the National Police, which seemed to be a certain indicator of some kind of conspiracy. CCIG agents gained access to Santos's mobile phone records and found that on the morning of Rodrigo's murder, Santos's phone had been making and receiving numerous calls within the vicinity of the shooting. Now that they had the name of a suspect who might have been involved in the hit, agents got to work gathering evidence. They set up a wiretap on Santos's mobile phone so they could listen in on all of his calls. It was the first time ever in Guatemala where a wiretap was legally implemented.

• 52:37Speaker 00

  Prior to CCIG's investigation, they'd only ever been used by unauthorized organizations.

• 52:45Speaker 00

  It turned out that William Hilberto Santos Diva was part of a crime gang. Investigators were able to identify ten members of the criminal network by surveilling Santos and recording his conversations. All of the members were men aged between twenty and forty. Like Santos, eight of the others were either current or former police officers. The final member was a military veteran.

• 53:15Speaker 00

  This kind of corruption within Guatemala’s armed and law enforcement agencies wasn’t unusual. CCIG agents gained access to the other gang members’ phones as well. For several months, the CCIG agents listened in on Santos and his affiliates, mapping out their relationships to one another and decoding the language they used to communicate. The agents recorded 12,000 phone calls.

• 53:43Speaker 00

  It became clear from the group’s communications that they were involved in all sorts of criminal activity, ranging from robberies to kidnappings for ransom. They were also professional hitmen who killed targets in exchange for money.

• 54:00Speaker 00

  One phrase the agents became accustomed to was “to knock over a big stick”, a secret phrase the criminals used to refer to killing a significant individual. One of the “big sticks” they referred to was Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano, with one of the gang’s leaders remarking on one occasion that “he wanted to hear zero comments about the Rosenberg job, because there were extremely powerful people involved in that particular hit”. The CCIG agents checked the gang’s phone data for the time of Rodrigo’s murder and were able to place many of them at the scene of the crime.

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Carlos Castrasana and his colleagues knew they had identified Rodrigo’s killers. They just didn’t know who had hired them, or why.

• 54:54Speaker 00

  Sometimes the CIG agents overheard the gang discussing impending crimes they were preparing to commit, like a bank robbery and a kidnapping for ransom. CIG subtly intervened by alerting the intended targets. The bank the group had planned to rob increased their security. A Korean businessman the group wanted to kidnap abruptly left Guatemala. As their crimes were foiled, the gang began to worry that there was a rat amongst them who was leaking their plans. They had a suspect in mind, the one former military officer in the group, who hadn't been recruited from the same police force as the rest.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, five months after Rodrigo's murder, CIG agents overheard a conversation between two of the gang's leaders in which they discussed the possible mole in their group. “We have a problem,” one said. “He’s going around talking about Rosenberg.” The two leaders agreed that the member they’d identified as a mole had to be killed. They planned to murder his girlfriend as well, who was underage and pregnant.

• 56:12Speaker 00

  Although Carlos Castrassana hadn’t yet learnt enough to figure out who had ordered the gang’s hit against Rodrigo, he realised they would have to step in immediately to prevent the double homicide. At 6am on Saturday, September 11, CIG agents launched 14 simultaneous raids at homes across Guatemala City and two other cities. By 6:10, all 10 members of the gang were arrested and in custody. More than 30 cellphones were seized in the raids, along with other evidence. The arrests were hugely publicised, with the suspects being paraded in front of news cameras as Carlos Castrassana assured reporters and the public

• 56:57Speaker 00

  that the killers of Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano had been apprehended. It was only a matter of time until they identified the person who’d hired them.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  When CIC agents examined the phone seized in the raid, they noticed there was a phone number that had been in consistent contact with the gang members on the day of Rodrigo's murder. It belonged to a man named Jesus Manuel Cardono Medina, who went by the alias of Mameen.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Medina was another crooked ex-cop involved in criminal activity. CIC agents brought Medina in for questioning, and he eventually agreed to confess to his involvement in the murder for hire, in exchange for a reduced sentence and a new identity in the country's witness protection program. Two of the other gang members followed suit, and investigators soon had a detailed picture of the days leading up to Rodrigo's murder, as well as the crime itself. Medina was the intermediary who had approached the gang with the murder request after being hired by somebody else.

• 58:13Speaker 00

  Medina said that person was a professional bodyguard, whose bosses were having problems with an extortionist. The bosses wanted to get rid of the extortionist, ultimately identified as Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. Medina agreed to take on the job, and met with the bodyguard's bosses. They would give him a burner phone he was to use to speak with a man on the inside, who would provide further details about the target, Rodrigo: his movements, where he lived, and what he looked like. It was his suggestion that the hitman attack Rodrigo as he left his apartment building.

• 58:55Speaker 00

  The inside man would pay forty thousand US dollars in exchange for the hit, and Medina outsourced the murder to the organized crime gang.

• 59:06Speaker 00

  On Friday, May 8, two days before Rodrigo's murder, the gang met up at a Burger King restaurant in an upscale neighbourhood to plan the hit for that Sunday morning. Then they scoped out Rodrigo's apartment building, checking it out from all angles and planning the logistics of the crime. Two days later, the gang rose early and met at a gas station at 6:30. They were travelling in four different cars. By 6:40, they were at Rodrigo's building.

• 59:41Speaker 00

  The early morning streets were silent, with no one to be seen. Waiting ready in place, the gang members just had to wait for the inside man to give them the signal to go. At 8am, the inside man called Medina, the intermediary, to give him a heads-up that Rodrigo was about to go on a bike ride. The gang members were to follow him and carry out the hit then and there. Medina in turn notified William Santos Diva, who was parked by the apartment building in his black Mazda 6. Within five minutes, Rodrigo left the building on his bicycle and rode away.

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Santos followed him until Rodrigo turned onto a service road. Then Santos radioed another gang member named Lucas Santiago, who was waiting in a white truck, and handed over the job to him. The white truck turned into the service road, and Santiago spotted Rodrigo, who was sitting on the curb, listening to music on his iPod. Santiago jumped out of the truck, shot Rodrigo five times with a 9mm gun, then got back in the truck and sped away.

• 1:01:00Speaker 00

  The hit now complete, the gang met up again at the same Burger King where they'd gone days earlier and had breakfast together. Medina tried calling the inside man to confirm that the job was done, but he didn't answer the phone.

• 1:01:26Speaker 00

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• 1:03:29Speaker 00

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• 1:03:45Speaker 00

  The phone number belonging to the inside man was one that the CCIG agents recognised. It was the same number behind the threatening calls Rodrigo had received in the week leading up to his murder. Records showed that the inside man's phone had only ever interacted with two other numbers. One was Rodrigo's cellphone, and the other was the burner phone Medina had been given by the powerful bosses who said they needed an extortionist taken care of. It hadn't been used since making the 8am call to Medina on Sunday, May 10, alerting him that it was time to kill Rodrigo. This burner phone was never found.

• 1:04:31Speaker 00

  Carlos Castrassano knew that identifying who this phone belonged to was key to solving the case. They tried to trace the owner by looking into when and how it was purchased. The phone had been bought from a shopping centre on Monday, May 4, just one day before the threatening calls to Rodrigo began. The buyer hadn't used a card to pay for the phone, instead opting for cash. This meant the purchase couldn't be traced to a bank account. However, investigators caught a lucky break when they found a sales tax form for the purchase that featured a faded signature. The signature belonged to Luis Lopez Florián,

• 1:05:16Speaker 00

  Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano's personal driver.

• 1:05:22Speaker 00

  CCTV footage from the store confirmed that Luis had bought the phone. This revelation didn't make sense, as Luis was known to be a devoted employee and close confidant of Rodrigo. Investigators couldn't understand why he would be behind the scheme that resulted in his boss's murder.

• 1:05:44Speaker 00

  Investigators approached Luis, but he refused to talk. The driver remained tight-lipped until Rodrigo's son Eduardo made contact with him. Eduardo couldn't believe that his father's trusted driver could have anything to do with his death, and promised Luis that he would stand by him. Eduardo just had one condition: If Luis had made any promises to Rodrigo before his murder, he had to break them now, for the sake of the case.

• 1:06:18Speaker 00

  When investigators reached out to Luis again, he began talking. He admitted that he had purchased the phone, but insisted that he had done so under strict instructions. On Monday, May 4, Rodrigo had taken an unofficial leave of absence from work. He then got in touch with Luis and asked him to run some errands for him. Rodrigo wanted Luis to go out and buy two prepaid cellphones from two separate shopping centres. Luis was to pay with cash and provide no form of identification when making the purchase. Luis did as his boss asked,

• 1:07:00Speaker 00

  but slipped up when he accidentally signed the sales tax form for one of the phones with his name. A secretary at Rosenberg's law firm subsequently confirmed that Luis had handed in receipts for the phones for reimbursement, seemingly verifying his claim that he believed the purchase was work-related. Surely if Luis were conspiring to commit murder, he wouldn't have made this mistake. Luis said that he'd taken the phones to Rodrigo, who had kept one of them. He asked Luis to deliver the other one to a close friend of his named Francisco Valdez Paez. Once again, the driver did as he was told.

• 1:07:49Speaker 00

  Francisco Valdez Paez had known Rodrigo since childhood. Francisco and his brother Estuardo owned one of Guatemala's largest pharmaceutical companies, and their cousin Rosa had been Rodrigo's first wife. Even though Rodrigo and Rosa had long since divorced, the Valdez Paez brothers still considered Rodrigo a member of the family, referring to him as their cousin. On Sunday, May 3, the day before Rodrigo asked his driver to buy two burner phones, Rodrigo asked Francisco to visit him at home. When Francisco arrived and sat down with Rodrigo, the latter made a startling confession:

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  He had been madly in love with Marjorie Musa, and her murder less than one month earlier had utterly devastated him. That coming Thursday, May 7, would have been their third anniversary. The couple had been secretly seeing each other for a long time. They'd first met while dropping their children off for school at the same bus stop near the apartment building where they both lived. Over time, a romance blossomed between them, even though Marjorie was married.

• 1:09:09Speaker 00

  Marjorie had been the one to recommend Rodrigo's legal services to her father, Khalil, and that was how Khalil had become his client. The business relationship also allowed Rodrigo to spend more time with Marjorie.

• 1:09:26Speaker 00

  Rodrigo's romance with Marjorie brought him a lot of joy. The twice-divorced father afore believed he had finally met his soulmate. The couple desperately wanted to be together, but the situation was difficult. Marjorie wanted to obtain a divorce before going public with another relationship. However, her father was very traditional, and there were rumours that he'd disinherited his eldest daughter, Aziza, following her own divorce.

• 1:09:57Speaker 00

  For years Rodrigo and Marjorie had to remain content with seeing one another in secret. They sent one another adoring messages, with Rodrigo calling Marjorie "Marjorie D. Rosenberg" and "My Tinker Bell". Every Tuesday, they shared a romantic lunch together at Rodrigo's apartment. He had his driver Luis fill the apartment with red roses prior to each date.

• 1:10:25Speaker 00

  When Marjorie hadn't arrived for their longstanding lunch plans on Tuesday, April 14, Rodrigo had known something was wrong. When he heard that two people were killed in a shooting nearby, he had screamed desperately at a friend over the phone: "They killed her! They killed her!"

• 1:10:46Speaker 00

  Friends and family had witnessed Rodrigo's intense grief over the ensuing days. He had cried for two hours straight after the murders were confirmed. His son Eduardo described Rodrigo as "completely destroyed". The reaction had seemed disproportionate, until Rodrigo confided in Eduardo and several others about his true relationship with Marjorie. In a letter to one friend, Rodrigo admitted that he felt like he was "disintegrating little by little".

• 1:11:22Speaker 00

  After Marjorie's death, Rodrigo received a call from a jeweler informing him that Marjorie had ordered a wedding ring for him shortly before her death. The pair had frequently discussed marrying when the time was right. Rodrigo wore the ring daily after that, telling a friend: "This is the message she sent me."

• 1:11:46Speaker 00

  He can be seen wearing it in the 18-minute video testimony to be released in the event of his murder, despite being unmarried at the time.

• 1:11:56Speaker 00

  When Rodrigo summoned his friend Francisco Valdez Paez to his home on Sunday, May 3, he told him that Marjorie had been planning to leave her husband on May 7, the date of their third anniversary.

• 1:12:11Speaker 00

  According to Francisco, during that same conversation, Rodrigo had said he was very scared that his life was in danger. He asked for Francisco’s help in finding a bodyguard who could protect him. Rodrigo said he would send Francisco a phone to pass along to the potential bodyguard. He didn’t want the bodyguard making contact using his usual device, because Rodrigo was worried he was being surveilled. This version of events is at odds with the confessions made by hired intermediary Medina and the hitmen. They identified Francisco and his brother Estuardo

• 1:12:52Speaker 00

  as the two powerful bosses who said they needed an extortionist killed. Investigators believed Francisco and Estuardo knew Rodrigo was hiring hitmen to kill someone, a person they believed to be a blackmailer. They hadn’t known that the true victim was Rodrigo himself.

• 1:13:17Speaker 00

  After the gang members carried out the hit, they had repeatedly tried to call the number of the inside man who had provided them with all of the information necessary to murder Rodrigo. The phone was never answered again. The gang members began to worry that they weren’t going to be paid, so they contacted the bodyguard who had originally set up the hit for his two powerful bosses. He informed them that his bosses were currently unavailable due to a family emergency. But the gang insisted that they needed to be paid, so a meeting was set up later that day at the boss’s workplace, the headquarters of their pharmaceutical company.

• 1:14:01Speaker 00

  Medina went on behalf of the gang and was greeted by Francisco and Estuardo Valdez Paez. Both were visibly shaken as they informed Medina that the wrong person had been murdered. The gang had killed their cousin, Rodrigo.

• 1:14:23Speaker 00

  The CIG's complex investigation had led them to a shocking revelation. The person who had orchestrated the hit against Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano was none other than Rodrigo himself. Although this seemed too bizarre to be believable, it also led to some elements of the crime finally making sense. If Rodrigo had been fearing for his life, then why would he have gone out for a bike ride on a Sunday morning in a dangerous city, making himself a vulnerable target? This ride had not been part of Rodrigo's typical schedule. In fact, his bicycle had actually been damaged for some time

• 1:15:07Speaker 00

  and was in need of repair up until right before the murder. Rodrigo had asked his driver Luis to make sure it was fixed by that Sunday morning. The only way the hitman could have known about Rodrigo's bike ride that day was if someone in Rodrigo's inner circle had tipped them off. And the only people who had known when he was departing were Rodrigo himself and his driver.

• 1:15:36Speaker 00

  Moreover, Rodrigo had been shot after getting off his bike and sitting for several minutes on the curb. Phone records revealed he hadn't received or made any calls at this time. It was as though he'd just been sitting there, waiting.

• 1:15:53Speaker 00

  Phone data also revealed that the supposed threatening calls he'd received from the same phone he'd had his driver by were made from inside his own apartment. CIG agents discovered that just before his death, Rodrigo had issued a cheque for forty thousand US dollars and asked his secretary to deliver it to the Valdez Pires brothers. This was the same amount of money promised to the criminal gang in exchange for the hit.

• 1:16:25Speaker 00

  The Valdez-Pires brothers had been unwitting pawns in Rodrigo's scheme. Rodrigo had lied to them to obtain their help in finding hitmen for hire.

• 1:16:37Speaker 00

  He had also lied to numerous friends and family members in the week leading up to his death, repeatedly talking about his fear that he would be killed and how he was being stalked by sinister forces. Six days before his murder, Rodrigo told his friend Luis Mendoza that the president's secretary had overtly threatened him, demanding that he stop blaming President Colom for the murder of the Musas, or the same thing would happen to him. Rodrigo claimed that he'd replied: "Neither you or anyone else are going to shut me up. You are a bunch of shitty murderers."

• 1:17:18Speaker 00

  Rodrigo had then enlisted Luis's help in recording a final testimony to be released in the event of his murder.

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  Rodrigo had set other plans in motion prior to his death. Just days before he was killed, he purchased two burial plots, one for himself and an adjoining one where he hoped Marjorie would be moved to. He handed over his law firm to his son Eduardo. He gave away several family heirlooms, and he bought a beach house as a gift for his family, situated on Guatemala's Pacific coast. All of these actions suggested he was preparing to die, rather than taking actions to prevent it. If Rodrigo's driver hadn't mistakenly signed his name on the sales tax form for one of the burner phones,

• 1:18:11Speaker 00

  then Rodrigo's scheme might have never been discovered.

• 1:18:16Speaker 00

  Carlos Castrassana and the other CCIG agents believed Rodrigo had been motivated by multiple factors. For starters, he had been in a highly distraught state following numerous stressful events in his life. He was estranged from some of his children, who were living in Mexico and undergoing a bitter custody battle with their mother. His own mother had recently died. And finally, he had been plunged into extreme despair and feelings of guilt by the violent murder of his girlfriend, Marjorie Musa. To some extent, he blamed himself for her death, due to not having advised Khalil Musa more strongly against becoming involved in the Ban Rual Bank.

• 1:19:02Speaker 00

  Rodrigo seemingly lost the desire to live, and also wanted revenge against the Colom government, whom he blamed for Marjorie's murder.

• 1:19:13Speaker 00

  Rodrigo was convinced the Coloms had killed Marjorie and Khalil Musa, thanks to intelligence he'd mostly received from his friend, Luis Mendez Abel. But Luis had told Rodrigo that he didn't stand a chance against the nation's president and his administration. Rodrigo agreed, realising he didn't have strong enough evidence to take to court, especially in a country where 98% of murders went unsolved. So, he fabricated documents that implicated the president, as well as putting together an even more drastic plot. With the help of Luis Mendez Abel and right-wing radio host Mario David Garcia,

• 1:19:58Speaker 00

  Rodrigo filmed a video blaming the government for his murder, instructing Luis to release it if he was killed. Then, he orchestrated his own death so he could blame the government from beyond the grave, in the hope that they would be overthrown by a furious public and political opponents.

• 1:20:22Speaker 00

  After eight months on the case, lead investigator Carlos Castro Senna was certain he had solved it, but was terrified about making his findings public. Rodrigo’s murder had stirred up so much anger and passion amongst the Guatemalan people, many of whom believed their government had engaged in multiple conspiracies. The revelation that Rodrigo himself had been behind the entire thing might seem unbelievable and could lead to further unrest. On Monday, January 11, 2010, Castro Senna met with Rodrigo’s son Eduardo and shared his findings.

• 1:21:03Speaker 00

  Eduardo would later say he was initially infuriated by what he was told. It seemed so convenient for the victim to be blamed, which left nobody really taking responsibility at all. In a feature article about the case for The New Yorker, writer David Grand said that Eduardo subsequently seemed to make peace with the findings. Quote, “He later told me that he had been forced to face a lot of dark truths.” In the meeting with Castro Senna, he made one request: if Castro Senna believed that his father had been trying, even if mistakenly, to help his country, then he should say

• 1:21:46Speaker 00

  so at the press conference. Castro Senna’s press conference announcing the result of the investigation was held the following day. He and his team had reviewed more than 100,000 phone calls, 5,000 documents and databases, and conducted countless interviews. They had left no stone unturned. Speaking to the media and the Guatemalan people, Castro Senna methodically laid out the evidence, before declaring...

• 1:22:18Speaker 00

  Who planned the act? We have to conclude that it was Rodrigo Rosenberg himself. Nobody else but him is responsible for his own death. He planned it all. Rosenberg felt guilty about the assassination of Marjorie Musa. He began a desperate search all over to find the Musa’s killers. But he found no proof. He decided to sacrifice his life in exchange for a change in the country. There can be no other explanation. Castrasana also kept his promise to Eduardo, adding: “He was an honorable person.”

• 1:23:02Speaker 00

  Those listening to the press conference were left stunned by Castrasana’s words. President Alvaro Colom had not been informed of the findings prior to Castrasana’s announcement. He held his own press conference two hours after Castrasana’s, his wife Sandra standing by his side as he stated. Today, a sad but very important chapter in the history of Guatemala is closed. May 11th of last year, we were accused of causing a tragic death, without proof and without any foundation.

• 1:23:40Speaker 00

  CIC agents had uncovered no links between the crime and President Colom, his wife, or any other members of his administration accused by Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. For some Guatemalans, this was vindication. Although many citizens had believed Rodrigo’s posthumous accusation, they had mostly been members of Guatemala’s wealthy elite who disliked President Colom and his wife Sandra. Others had always been suspicious that the video was part of a right-wing plot to overthrow a government that wanted to raise business taxes and improve the circumstances of the country’s poverty-stricken Mayan population.

• 1:24:23Speaker 00

  Investigators had even looked into whether the president had any connection to the Valdez-Pires brothers, who were responsible for setting up the hit, but found none. In December of 2009, CIC issued arrest warrants for Francisco and Astewart Valdez-Pires, who had since gone into hiding. They spent almost seven months overseas on the run before returning to Guatemala and handing themselves over to the authorities on Monday, June 28, 2010.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  The brothers maintained their claim that they’d thought they were simply hiring a bodyguard for Rodrigo. They were transferred to a military-based prison for their own protection. In another public press conference, Carlos Castrasana accused the two brothers of destroying evidence and sabotaging the state’s case against them. In July 2013, more than four years after the crime, the chief witness against the brothers, Jesus Manuel Cardona Medina, suddenly retracted his testimony against them. Medina claimed he had been coerced into certain statements by CIC. Four years later, the charges against the brothers were dropped due to a lack of evidence.

• 1:25:44Speaker 00

  They were released after spending seven years in custody. Although Medina and all ten gang members were convicted for their role in Rodrigo’s murder, no one has ever been held responsible for planning it.

• 1:26:01Speaker 00

  Although the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano had been officially solved, a number of unanswered questions remained. Some people who trusted the result of CIC’s investigation still wondered whether Rodrigo had been helped by co-conspirators in carrying out his plan. Namely, they suspected that Rodrigo’s longtime friend and mentor, Luis Mendez Arbel, and right-wing radio host Mario David Garcia had been in on Rodrigo’s scheme the entire time.

• 1:26:34Speaker 00

  Luis Mendez Abel was a well-known spy who was not a fan of the Colom government. Mario David Garcia was also opposed to Colom’s administration. It was speculated that the two, who had admitted to helping Rodrigo film his testimony, had been the architects of the murder. However, they completely denied any knowledge of Rodrigo’s plans to have himself murdered. Lead investigator Carlos Castressana told New Yorker writer David Grand that while he wasn’t sure if the two men were in on the plot, he did believe they had tried to exploit the murder for their own political purposes.

• 1:27:17Speaker 00

  “They were preparing some kind of coup,” Castressana said. Cisig had managed to find a witness who claimed Mario David Garcia encouraged Rodrigo to take his own life and to release the video he’d recorded, stating: “Do it for your country.”

• 1:27:37Speaker 00

  There were also claims that the country’s vice president had tension with President Colom and ambitions to become the president himself. According to another witness who was friends with Luis Mendez Abel, one week before Rodrigo was killed, the vice president was told about Rodrigo’s investigation into the Musa murders and asked if he was in a position to take control of the country if necessary. “Yes,” was Vice President Espada’s reply. When asked about this conversation, Vice President Espada denied it. In his recorded testimony, Rodrigo had encouraged the vice president to assume power from President Colom.

• 1:28:25Speaker 00

  Although Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano’s case was solved, the double homicide that had motivated his killing was still open. Although President Colom had been absolved in the Rosenberg case, many still blamed him for the murders of Khalil and Marjorie Musa. But investigators had found little evidence to support Rodrigo’s claims surrounding the Musa murders.

• 1:28:50Speaker 00

  It turned out that the story that Khalil Musa had been asked to join Anna Cafe's board wasn't even true. It had actually been Khalil who'd approached the board to make the request himself. Moreover, Khalil Musa had ultimately turned down the offer to join the Ban Rurall Bank's board. That matter had been resolved prior to his death, removing the supposed motive for his murder that Rodrigo had cited. C. Sig were eventually able to identify the hitman who had killed the Musas. Several confessed after being arrested and said that the reason for Khalil's murder was related to his textile business.

• 1:29:34Speaker 00

  Although he had a reputation for integrity, Khalil Musa was said to be purchasing contraband fabric for his factory from a criminal gang. When he got into a dispute with the gang and refused to pay the agreed-upon amount for the fabric, the distributor arranged to have him killed. His daughter Marjorie was collateral damage in the attack. Twelve gang members were arrested for their role in the Musa murders and taken to trial. Eight men were convicted for the crime. Although the court found these hitmen guilty, it ruled that prosecutors had not proven a motive.

• 1:30:14Speaker 00

  The Musa family, who had rejected C. Sig's reasoning for Khalil Musa's murder, took out a full-page newspaper advertisement asserting the court's ruling was proof of the absolute integrity of Mr. Khalil Musa and his impeccable business ethic.

• 1:30:32Speaker 00

  C. Sig remained confident in their findings and considered the case solved and closed.

• 1:30:40Speaker 00

  Khalil Musa's eldest daughter Aziza has since published a book about her father's life titled "A Lebanese from Guatemala". It turned out that several of the criminals who had participated in the contract killing also played a part in the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. He had inadvertently hired some of the men who had killed his beloved girlfriend to end his own life as well.

• 1:31:11Speaker 00

  In his piece for The New Yorker, writer David Grand reflected on how Rosenberg's mistaken belief about the Musa murders almost upended the Guatemalan government, writing: "Rosenberg, who in the land of the blind had seemed like a one-eyed king, had been wrong about who killed the Musas, triggering a series of tragic events that nearly rewrote a nation's history, based on a lie."

• 1:31:41Speaker 00

  After the truth was revealed, the Colom administration was able to continue running the country. President Colom completed his four-year term in January of 2012. As Guatemalan presidents are only permitted to serve a single term, he did not run for reelection. His wife Sandra later ran for president in three separate elections, but never won. In 2019, she was arrested on charges of violating campaign finance rules. The case was dismissed three years later in 2022. President Alvaro Colom died in January 2023 at the age of 71.

• 1:32:25Speaker 00

  He had been suffering from esophageal cancer and pulmonary anthema. His legacy as president was significant, with a focus on expanding social programs and assistance to Guatemala's poorest citizens, who gained increased access to health services, education, and social security. President Colom also built a strong relationship with the country's Mayan peoples, making him one of the first presidents in Guatemala to do so. But his government was also tainted by corruption, which made him strongly disliked. Despite some of the accomplishments he achieved while in office, President Colom left office with a 95.83% disapproval rating.

• 1:33:13Speaker 00

  Guatemala today has much lower violent crime than it did in 2009. The homicide rate has dropped from 46 per 100,000 people to 16. The country still faces challenges with organised crime, drug trafficking, the justice system and violence, but improvements have been made.

• 1:33:35Speaker 00

  In October 2022, writer and narrator Edgar Castillo, a first-generation Guatemalan-American, launched a 10-episode podcast about the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano. Titled “The Rosenberg Case”, it was executive produced by Hollywood star Oscar Isaac, another Guatemalan-American. In the series, Castillo reflects on how this particular murder seemed to usher in a new era of political conspiracy theories, the likes of which are far more prevalent today than they were in 2009. Castillo credits Rodrigo’s video with giving his story greater impact, and thanks

• 1:34:16Speaker 00

  to the then-relatively-new social media platform of YouTube, his story was able to reach millions of people who otherwise might never have seen it. Over the years, YouTube has become home to a plethora of conspiracy theory content, making such theories more accessible and seemingly credible than they might otherwise be. Quote: “YouTube isn’t just about uploading and watching videos, it’s also the second-largest search engine in the world.” So what does this mean for the creation and dissemination of conspiracy theories? The obvious answer is that it’s never been easier to do both.

• 1:34:57Speaker 00

  What no one knew, what no one could have possibly anticipated, was that the story Rosenberg told was almost completely fictional, manufactured. It was as if he had put it together on a storyboard with a crack team of writers. Rosenberg, perhaps with the help of Luis Mendez Abel and Mario David Garcia, had effectively created a piece of content, conspiracy as content, and had chosen the perfect platform upon which to disseminate it. And, in my opinion, the whole Rosenberg affair inaugurated a new era of political disinformation. It served as a prototype for what a conspiracy theory could do

• 1:35:41Speaker 00

  when turned into entertainment and deployed on social media.

• 1:35:47Speaker 00

  After the truth about Rodrigo’s murder was revealed by Carlos Castressana and C. Sig, vandals destroyed the shrine that had been built for the lawyer at the site of his death. Photos and trinkets that had been left there were thrown about the street. A cross that had been erected there was left defaced and crooked. But to many people, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano was still a hero who had died because he wanted to inspire positive change for his country. To those who knew and loved him, Rodrigo was a respected lawyer, a doting father, a beloved friend, and a passionate advocate for Guatemala.

• 1:36:29Speaker 00

  In 2011, Rodrigo’s son Eduardo wrote an op-ed in which he reflected on his father’s legacy, writing: “What defined my father was his life, regardless of the circumstances under which it came to an end, whatever they were. In that realization lies our peace.”

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