In November 2025, Comunicaciones Celulares S.A., doing business as TIGO Guatemala, a mobile and fixed telecommunications service provider in Guatemala, paid over $118 million to resolve an investigation by the Justice Department into a long-running scheme to bribe government officials in Guatemala. TIGO Guatemala is a wholly owned subsidiary of Millicom International Cellular, S.A. (“Millicom”), an international telecommunications company incorporated and headquartered in Luxembourg that has its principal place of business in the United States.
TIGO Guatemala entered into a two-year deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in connection with a criminal information filed in the Southern District of Florida charging the company with one count of conspiracy to violate the anti-bribery provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).
According to court documents, between 2012 and 2018, TIGO Guatemala engaged in a widespread and systematic bribery scheme orchestrated by its then-Guatemalan shareholder and other then-senior personnel. The scheme featured monthly bribe payments, usually paid in cash, to numerous Guatemalan members of Congress or members of their security teams, in exchange for, among other things, their support for legislation that benefited TIGO Guatemala. Some of the cash that TIGO Guatemala used to pay bribes were the laundered proceeds of narcotrafficking.
As part of the DPA, TIGO Guatemala agreed to pay a $60 million criminal penalty and $58,198,343 in administrative forfeiture. Pursuant to the DPA, TIGO Guatemala and its corporate parent, Millicom, agreed, among other things, to continue cooperating with the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida in any ongoing or future criminal investigation arising during the term of the DPA. TIGO Guatemala and Millicom also agreed to enhance TIGO Guatemala’s compliance program and to periodically report to the department on remediation and implementation of compliance measures throughout the term of the DPA.
The department reached this resolution with TIGO Guatemala based on a number of factors, including, among others, the nature and seriousness of the offense. In determining the appropriate disposition of this matter, the department gave significant weight to Millicom’s initial voluntary and timely self-disclosure to the Criminal Division in 2015. During the ensuing investigation, however, TIGO Guatemala’s then-Guatemalan shareholder used its operational control to prevent Millicom from accessing critical information, and to prevent Millicom from requiring TIGO Guatemala personnel to cooperate and take remedial actions. The Fraud Section closed its initial investigation in 2018. Two years later, in 2020, the department obtained and proactively developed new evidence from sources other than TIGO Guatemala and Millicom regarding TIGO Guatemala’s conduct and reopened its investigation on that basis. The new evidence revealed the scope of TIGO Guatemala’s conduct, including that the criminal conduct continued during and after the department’s closure of the first phase of the investigation and involved narcotrafficking proceeds that were used to generate cash for some of the bribe payments. Accordingly, TIGO Guatemala did not meet the requirements for a resolution pursuant to Part I or Part II of the Criminal Division’s Corporate Enforcement and Voluntary Self-Disclosure Policy.