Horacio Cartes
| Horacio Cartes | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| President of Paraguay | |
|
Assumed office 15 August 2013 |
|
| Vice President | Juan Afara |
| Preceded by | Federico Franco |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
5 July 1956 Asunción, Paraguay |
| Political party | Colorado Party |
| Spouse(s) | former spouse: María Montaña |
| Children | Juan Pablo Sofía María Sol |
| Residence | Mburuvicha Róga |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Horacio Manuel Cartes Jara (born 5 July 1956) is a Paraguayan businessman, and current President of Paraguay, as of the Paraguayan general election, 2013. He is a member of the Colorado Party.
Cartes owns about two dozen businesses in his Grupo Cartes conglomerate including tobacco, soft drinks, meat production, and banking. He was president of Club Libertad football club from 2001 until 2012, and had been the president of the national team department of the Paraguayan Football Association during the 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification.
Cartes' father was the owner of a Cessna aircraft franchise holding company and the young Horacio studied aviation mechanics in the United States. At the age of 19, he started a currency exchange business which grew into the Banco Amambay. Over the following years, Cartes bought or helped establish 25 companies including Tabesa, the country's biggest cigarette manufacturer, and a major fruit juice bottling company.
In 1986, Cartes spent 60 days in jail during a currency fraud investigation. He was accused of making millions of dollars on a central bank loan obtained at a preferential exchange rate and then moving it through his money exchange business before buying farm equipment in the U.S. The case was eventually dropped.
Cartes was imprisoned on charges of currency fraud for seven months in 1989. He was eventually cleared by a court.
In 2000, the anti-drug police seized a plane carrying cocaine and marijuana on his ranch. He claimed that the plane had made an emergency landing, that he had no involvement with the drug trade and that he opposed the legalization of narcotics.
Cartes' name appears in the Offshore leaks files in connection with a Cook Islands financial entity linked to Cartes' Paraguayan bank Banco Amambay. A classified cable from 2010 mentioned Cartes as the focus of a money laundering investigation by the DEA.
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