Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre, for suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. In early May of 2009, a prominent Guatemalan attorney named Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano began receiving threatening phone calls. The call started on Tuesday, May 5 and always played out the same way.
Rodrigo's cell phone 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 10-15 seconds long, just enough time to deliver a death threat. Sometimes the call said nothing at all, they just left a heavy, drawn-out silence before hanging up. 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. 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, 5 days into the threatening calls, Rodrigo invited Eduardo to take a 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 to then constantly glancing anxiously around him when they arrived at their destination. 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. The Republic of Guatemala is a Central American country located immediately south of Mexico. Rich in history and to natural resources, its striking landscapes are dotted with volcanoes, rainforests and sprawling plantations that grow coffee beans, cacao, bananas and sugar cane. 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. Colonization and exploitation of the country's natural resources have led to generations of Guatemalans suffering violence, political turmoil and racism. In 1954, the country's second ever democratically elected president was overthrown in a coup d'état or 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. 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 countries. 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, saw 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. 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 the Legal Clan Dastin security aberratuses, or C-ACs, which trafficked drugs, facilitated illegal adoptions, crafted fake passports, kidnapped victims for ransom, embezzled and laundered money, and provided murder for higher services. These criminal networks even infiltrated governments and law enforcement agencies, leading to corruption and chaos at the highest levels. 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, ''Gwadamala is a good place to commit a murder, because you will almost certainly get away with it.'' The citizens who suffered the most from Guatemala's instability into 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, nutrition 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 Rod Rigo Rosenberg Marzano was a member of this elite group. Rod Rigo was born six years after the CIA's installation of a dictatorship toppled Guatemala into chaos, and his parents were very wealthy. His mother had inherited her money, while his father was a highly successful businessman. Her wealth allowed Rod Rigo to attend the country's best schools, and then later study at England's University of Cambridge, as well as Harvard in the US.
But, even as a highly privileged individual, Rod Rigo 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 Rod Rigo'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.
Despite this family tragedy, Rod Rigo went on to obtain his bachelor's and master's in law. In 1987, when he was still in his 20s, 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 entered into divorce, and he was living alone in a luxury apartment located in Guatemala City's Aflorn to Zone 14 neighborhood.
Rod Rigo's wife was comfortable, if not entirely, smooth sailing. Rod Rigo 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 pitcher of success when he started receiving threatening phone calls in early May 2009. The calls over six consecutive days had left Rod Rigo 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. Rod Rigo told his friend, Aziza Moosa, about the latest going on in his life, adding that he planned to go on a long bike ride the next morning to clear his head. 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, Rod Rigo went about his morning as planned and called his personal driver at 7.58am to let him know he was headed out on a bike ride. 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 metres down the street before turning on to a service road.
Shortly after this, a chauffeur named Luis Lopez Florian made his way over to Rod Rigo's apartment. Luis had been Rod Rigo's personal driver for a long time and their relationship went beyond that of an employee and employee. Rod Rigo considered Luis a trusted friend and a confidant, and the two were very close. As Luis drove down a service road near Rod Rigo's home, he noticed a number of paramedics and police officers crowded around a figure lying on the ground.
It was Luis's boss, Rod Rigo Rosenberg-Mazano. 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 Rod Rigo's son Eduardo and told him to go immediately to his father's apartment. He didn't want the young man stumbling upon the grizzly crime scene.
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. His my dad dad, Eduardo, asked. Yes, replied Luis.
The Rosenberg family was devastated by the sudden and brutal murder of Rod Rigo, 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 Rod Rigo had always said he wanted to play at his funeral.
His son Eduardo gave a moving eulogy, wearing he thanked everyone for attending and helping the family as they began their grieving process. Towards the end of the funeral, as Rod Rigo's casket was being lowered into the ground, a man named Luis Mendezavel stepped forward and requested permission to speak. Luis Mendezavel was a long time friend of Rod Rigo's, as well as his mentor and confidant. The older man had known Rod Rigo since he was a boy, and had helped find Rod Rigo's brothers' remains after he was kidnapped.
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 Rod Rigo very much, and all of you are wondering why someone like Rod Rigo, who never harmed anyone, was murdered. Well, Rod Rigo left me with the answer. If you want to know the truth about what happened to him, then here is his testimony.
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 Rod Rigo's murder. Those who took one and watched it upon returning home were first met with the side of Rod Rigo 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 Rod Rigo.
It looked like an amateur set up, but Rod Rigo had clearly taken care with his appearance, dressed in a navy suit, a white shirt, and a pale blue tie. 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 Rod Rigo Rosenberg-Mazano, and unfortunately, if you are currently watching or listening to this message, it's because I was murdered by President Alvaro Colom. 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'état. 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. More than 50 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 long-standing 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 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. Khalil Musa had been a wealthy client of Rodriguez and a member of Guatemala's elite. He had immigrated to Guatemala from Lebanon in 1949 when he was just 17 years old and initially worked as a labourer picking coffee beans alongside Mayan peasants.
Over the years, Khalil learned Spanish, married and started a family before later opening a textile factory and becoming a coffee producer. His businesses took off and Khalil Musa became a captain of industry who was well known and respected for his honesty and integrity. By 2008, he was in his mid-70s and in the process of handing over his business to his two daughters as he served and a margarita. 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 Anacafe, 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 Ben-Rourell, Guatemala's Rural Development Bank. Ben-Rourell provided funds for the rural and microenterprise sector in Guatemala and while it was a private business, 30% of its shares were owned by the government, giving them three seats on the board of directors.
Khalil was far less enthusiastic about this part of the offer. While he was eager to serve Guatemala's coffee sector, he had a little interest in Ben-Rourell. Khalil had discussed to the matter with his lawyer, Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano, in December of 2008 and sought his advice. Rodrigo was opposed to getting involved with Guatemalan politics and told Khalil as much.
Plus, there were rumours that Ben-Rourell 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. 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 a lunch before heading back to work.
Usually, his oldest daughter, Azizah, 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, 42-year-old Marjorie, to drive their father instead, while she wrapped up her call. Khalil and Marjorie, who was a married mother of two and her father's favourite, headed down to Marjorie's Green Station Wagon at 12.50 pm. They both got in and Marjorie drove them out of the factory parking lot.
They headed down a busy street that was full of traffic and to 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 and Marjorie had been hit by each of the nine shots and was dead. 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 of the slings 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 Rural's board, where he would have no doubt uncovered embezzlement and a government corruption. Khalil Musa was renowned for his integrity and would not have stood for such abuses of power.
Rodrigo deeply regretted not urging Khalil more strongly against accepting the nominations. 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.
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 organizations that had infiltrated Guatemala's government would block any attempted investigation and destroy evidence. 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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Support the show by mentioning us at checkout, terms and conditions apply. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support case file to continue to deliver quality content. Rodrigo approached his friend and mentor Luis Mendezable 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.
He had also advised several Guatemalan presidents, including the most recently elected Alvaro Colom. Luis had contacts everywhere. Luis and Rodrigo were able to obtain security footage from the Mus' 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 are driving away, they also caught a hit squad following closely behind on motorcycles. Rodrigo spoke with Khalil Mus' surviving daughter Aziza, who was also a friend of his. She told him that her father had received thinly-veiled threats from powerful individuals after being offered the board nominations.
Officials connected to Ben Rurrell and Anna Caffay strongly and repeatedly advised Khalil Mus' 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 the documents relating to the appointments.
One was a copy of Alada Khalil had sent to a group of people associated with Ben Rurrell, in which he stated that he would not tolerate messages filled with a double meaning, writing, "...I protect myself from my enemies." As Rodrigo continued digging into the Mus' 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 out. Rodrigo explained that during the course of his investigation, he had found a document's evidence proving that the Mus' murders went all the way to the top.
The president, Elvaro Gollum, his wife Sandra, and the president's private secretary Gustavo Alejos had been embezzling and laundering money from Ben Rurrell alongside other members of their administration. Knowing that Khalil Mus' would speak out against this corruption if he joined the board, they had orchestrated his murder. 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-intrenched corruption.
It's the same story we've been hearing and repeating in recent years Rodrigo stated. And ask what amalans 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. Rodrigo repeatedly demanded President Elvaro Gollum's resignation and imprisonment and urged the country's vice president whom he said was honorable 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. 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 last name. They will try to sully the name of Khalil Mus'a, Marjorie Mus'a, 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 Gollum and Sandra D'Ekelum. Guatemalans, it's time. Please, it's time. Good evening.
It didn't take long for the video to spread from those who'd received copies at Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano's funeral. It was broadcast on every television news channel that evening of Monday, May 11, just the hours after Rodrigo was buried. At 1029 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.
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 other class gathered in squares and shouted chants directed at President Alvaro Gollum, such as, murder of murderer, and to resign, resign. The protesters wore white t-shirts as a symbolic statement against the dirty politics.
They held up signs that read, I am Rodrigo, we want justice. Rodrigo, thanks for waking us up, no more violence, and Sandra and Gollum to resign. The leader of Guatemala's opposition party, General Odo Barres Molina, 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 the leader of the country. 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. 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 Rural and bankrupt the Bank of the corrupt.
As the protests grew, so did the Guatemalan governments panic. Just days earlier, on Monday, May 11, President Alvaro Colón had been in the middle of a meeting that was suddenly interrupted by his private secretary, Gustavo Aleos. Gustavo had just received a call from his cousin, who had been at Rodrigo Rosenberg Mazone's funeral that same day. Gustavo's cousin told him how a friend of Rodrigo said 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. President Colón and his inner circle all gathered in his office to view the recording. All of them were left stunned by the end. Gustavo Aleos, 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. The brevity of his response and the fact that the president hadn't even appeared himself seemed to enrage the public further.
Within 48 hours, Guatemala was engulfed by chaos. President Colón 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 Pirodigo wrote in response, I can't help but express the repugnance I felt during the declarations of President Elvira Colón.
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 Colón to hand over the investigation to the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala, or CICIG, a UN-backed organization created just three years earlier. CIC 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 remove their presence from the government. 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 Yorkar 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.
CICIG was led by 51-year-old Carlos Castresana, a Spanish former prosecutor and judge who would be responsible for the investigation. Carlos had moved to Guatemala to head up CICIG and to 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 CIC's compound, and whenever he left, he had to travel in armor-plated vehicles.
Carlos took his job seriously and was aware of its risks. Every morning and evening, his office was checked for covert surveillance equipment, just in case there was a mole inside CIC 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. After being assigned Rodrigo's case, Carlos Castresana 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. Carlos Castresana 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. 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 8am, they seemed to assume positions. 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 805am, Rodrigo emerged from his apartment building and cycled away on his bike. The car followed. At 807, a camera filmed Rodrigo's cycling past.
The black Mazda followed one minute and 36 seconds later. Then another camera captured Rodrigo again, cycling past the parked car. The Mazda appeared one minute and 26 seconds later, getting closer. 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 coke and spiriter an update on Rodrigo's location. That coke and spiriter had then driven into the service road and to deliver the five fatal shots. 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. He had also been listening to his iPod at the time. Near to where Rodrigo's body was found was several deeper grooves in the dirt next to the road. They looked like tire tracks.
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 Mendezable, 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. 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 these 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 these allegations against President Colom. But his murder had prevented that appearance from happening. 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, CC agents had been canvassing Rodrigo's neighborhood 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. Their meeting was abruptly interrupted by swarms of police officers bursting into the lobby and attempting to arrest the witness. The CC 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.
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. CC agents soon caught wind of another possible witness when a government minister notified Carlos Castrasana 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. 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.
The politicians the witness implicated were not from the Colormid administration, but from the opposition. The vice presidential candidate to General Otto Perez-Mellina, who had lost to President Colorm at the previous election, was named as being involved. As the agents continued to speak with the witness of 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.
The unexpected appearance of reporters at the secret meeting was frustrating to Carlos Castrasana, especially as he told President Colorm to ensure no one from the media knew about it. When the CC 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 Colorm's spokesman and the first lady were part of the scheme.
All of this misdirection only made Carlos Castrasana more suspicious that the government was trying to cover something up. He sent a formal complaint to the government about their meddling and also forwarded it to the United Nations. From that moment on, the CC agents were left alone to complete their investigation. They turned their attention to the Black Mazda 6 that had been captured on security cameras trailing Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano 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. CC agents obtained a record of all Black Mazda 6's registered in Guatemala. There were only 50 in the entire country. Over the next few weeks, CC agents tracked down each and every one and carefully photographed them, looking for the right car.
They finally found it at 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 Hillburto Santos-Dever. Notably, Santos was a former member of the National Police, which seemed to be a certain indicator of some kind of conspiracy.
CC agents gained access to Santos' mobile phone records and found that on the morning of Rodrigo's murder, Santos' 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 a hit, agents got to work at gathering evidence. They set up a wiretap on Santos' 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.
Prior to CC's investigation, they'd only ever been used by unauthorized organizations. It turned out that William Hillburto Santos-Dever was part of a crime gang. Investigators were able to identify 10 members of the criminal network by surveilling Santos and recording his conversations. All of the members were men aged between 20 and 40.
Like Santos, eight of the others were either current or former police officers. The final member was a military veteran. This kind of corruption within Guatemala's armed and law enforcement agencies wasn't unusual. CC agents gained access to the other gang members' phones as well.
For several months, the CC agents listened in on Santos and his affiliates, mapping out their relationships to one another and to decoding the language they used to communicate. The agents recorded 12,000 phone calls. 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.
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-Mazano, 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 CC 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. Carlos Castro-Sanna and his colleagues knew they had identified Rodrigo's killers.
They just didn't know who had hired them, or why? Sometimes the CC agents overheard the gang discussing impending crimes they were preparing to commit, like a bank robbery and a kidnapping for ransom. CC subtly intervened by alerting the intent to targets. The bank the group had planned to rob increased their security.
A Korean businessman the group wanted the 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. On Tuesday, September 8, 2009, five months after Rodrigo's murder, CC 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, once 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.
Although Carlos Castro-Sanna hadn't yet learned enough to figure out who had ordered the gang's hit against Rodrigo, he realized that they would have to step in immediately to prevent the double homicide. At 6am on Saturday, September 11, CC 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 cell phones were seized in the raids, along with other evidence.
The arrests were hugely publicized, with the suspects being paraded in front of news cameras as Carlos Castro-Sanna assured reporters and the public that the killers of Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano had been apprehended. It was only a matter of time until they had identified the person who'd hired them. When CC agents examined the phone seized in the raid, they noticed that 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 Cado-No Medina, who went by the alias of Mameen.
Medina was another crooked ex-cop involved in criminal activity. CC agents brought Medina in for questioning and he eventually agreed to confess that he's involvement in the murder for hire, in exchange for a reduced sentence and a new identity in the 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.
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-Mazano. Medina agreed to take on the job and met with the bodyguard's bosses. They would give him a burn-a-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 attacked Rodrigo as he left his apartment building. The inside man would pay $40,000 in exchange for the hit and to Medina outsourced the murder to the organized crime gang. On Friday, May 8, two days before Rodrigo's murder, the gang met up at a Burger King restaurant in an upscale neighborhood 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 traveling in four different cars. By 6.40, they were at Rodrigo's building. The only 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. 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 nine millimeter gun, then got back in the truck and sped away. 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. Case file will be back shortly.
Thank you for supporting us by listening to this episode's sponsors. Thank you for listening to this episode's ads. By supporting our sponsors, you support Case File to continue to deliver quality content. The phone number belonging to the inside man was one that the CC agents recognized.
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 cell phone, and the other was the burner phone Medina had been given by the powerful bosses who said they needed an extortionist to take 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. Carlos Castro Senna 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 center on Monday May 4, just one day before the threatening calls to Rodrigo began.
The buyer hadn't used the 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 Florian, Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano's personal driver.
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 confidante of Rodrigo. Investigators couldn't understand why he would be behind this game that resulted in his boss's murder. Investigators approached Luis, but he refused to talk.
The driver remained tightlit 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.
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 cell phones from two separate shopping centers. Luis was to pay with cash and provide no form of identification when making the purchase. Luis did, as his boss asked, 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 phone's for reimbursement, seemingly verifying he's claimed 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 to one of them. He asked Luis to deliver the other one to a close friend of his, named Francisco Valdez Pius. Once again, the driver did, as he was told.
Francisco Valdez Pius had known Rodrigo since childhood. Francisco and his brother Estuado 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 Pius 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 burnophones, Rodrigo asked Francisco to visit him at home.
When Francisco arrived and sat down with Rodrigo, the latter made a startling confession. 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 St. Bus stop near the apartment building where they both lived. Over time, a romance blossomed between them, even though Marjorie was married. 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. Rodrigo's romance with Marjorie brought him a lot of joy. The twice-devourced father of four 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 rumors that he'd disinherited his eldest daughter, Aziza, following her own divorce. 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 Tinkerbell. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. When Rodrigo summoned his friend, Francisco vowed as piers 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.
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 Hittman. They identified Francisco and his brother Esteruato as the two powerful bosses who said they needed an extortionist killed. Investigators believed Francisco and Esteruato knew Rodrigo was hiring Hittman to kill someone, a person they believed to be a blackmailer. They hadn't known that the true victim was Rodrigo himself.
After the gang members carried out the Hitt, 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 Hitt 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. Medina went on behalf of the gang and was greeted by Francisco and Esteruato Valdez Peis. Both were visibly shaken as they informed Medina that the wrong person had been murdered. The gang had killed their cousin, Rodrigo.
The C.C. complex investigation had led them to a shocking revelation. The person who had orchestrated the Hitt 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 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 Hitt man 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. 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. Phone data also revealed that the supposed threatening calls he'd received from the same phone he'd had his driver buy were made from inside his own apartment. CC agents discovered that just before his death, Rodrigo had issued a check for US$40,000 and asked his secretary to deliver it to the Valdez Piers brothers. This was the same amount of money promised to the criminal gang in exchange for the hit.
The Valdez Piers brothers had been unwitting pawns in Rodrigo's scheme. Rodrigo had lied to them to obtain their help in fighting Hitt man for hire. 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 to Luis Mendezabu that the president's secretary had overtly threatened him, demanding that he stop blaming President Colombe for the murder of the Mus' 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." Rodrigo had then enlisted Luis' help in recording a final testimony to be released in the event of his murder. Rodrigo had said 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 bournafones, then Rodrigo's scheme might have never been discovered.
Carlos Castro-Sonna and the other CC 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 Banru-Ral Bank. Rodrigo seemingly lost the desire to live and also wanted revenge against the Colom government, whom he blamed for Marjorie's murder. Rodrigo was convinced that the Colom had killed Marjorie and Khalil Musa, thanks to intelligence he'd mostly received from his friend, Luis Mendezabul. But Luis had told Rodrigo that he didn't stand a chance against the nation's president and his administration.
Rodrigo agreed, realizing 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 Mendezabul and right-wing radio host Mario David Garcia, 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.
After eight months on the case, lead investigator Carlos Castro-Sanna 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-Sanna met with Rodrigo's son Eduardo and shared his findings.
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 Grant 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-Sanna, he made one request. If Castro-Sanna believed that his father had been trying, even if mistakenly, to hold peace country, then he should say so at the press conference. Castro-Sanna'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-Sanna methodically laid out the evidence before declaring. 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 Musser. He began a desperate search all over to find the Musser'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. Castro-Sanna also kept his promise to Eduardo, adding, he was an honorable person. Those listening to the press conference were left stunned by Castro-Sanna's words.
President Alvaro Colom had not been informed of the findings prior to Castro-Sanna's announcement. He held his own press conference two hours after Castro-Sanna'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 11 of last year, we were accused of causing a tragic death without proof and without any foundation.
CC agents had uncovered no links between the crime and President Colom, his wife, or any other members of his administration accused by Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano. 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.
Investigators had even looked into whether the president had any connection to the Valdez-Piers brothers who were responsible for setting up the hit, but found none. In December of 2009, CC issued a arrest warrant for Francisco and Estuado Valdez-Piers 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. 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 Castro-Sanna 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 witnessed against the brothers, Jesus Manuel Cardona Medina, suddenly retracted his testimony against them. Medina claimed he had been coerced into certain statements by CC.
Four years later, the charges against the brothers were dropped due to a lack of evidence. They were released after spending seven years in custody. Although Medina and all 10 gang members were convicted for their role in Rodrigo's murder, no one has ever been held responsible for planning it. Although the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano had been officially solved, a number of unanswered questions remained.
Some people who trusted the result of CC'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 Mendezabal and right-wing radio host Mario David Garcia had been in on Rodrigo's scheme the entire time. Luis Mendezabal was a well-known spy who was not a fan of the Colomb government. Mario David Garcia was also opposed to Colomb'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 Castrasana told New Yorker writer David Gran 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. They were preparing some kind of coup, Castrasana said.
CC 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. There were also claims that the country's vice president had tension with President Colomb and ambitions to become the president himself. According to another witness who was friends with Luis Mendezabal, one week before Rodrigo was killed, the vice president was told about Rodrigo's investigation into the Moosa 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 Colomb. Although Rodrigo Rosenberg Marzano's case was solved, the double homicide that had motivated his killing was still open. Although President Colomb 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.
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 Banra-Ruel Banks 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. 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. 12 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 hitman guilty, it ruled that prosecutors had not proven a motive.
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. C-Sig remained confident in their findings and considered the case solved and closed. 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. In his piece for The New Yorker, writer David Grant reflected on how Rosenberg's mistaken belief about the Musa murders almost upended to the Guatemalan government, writing, Rosenberg, who in the land of the blind had seen to look 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. After the truth was revealed, the Colomb administration was able to continue running the country. President Colomb 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 re-election. His wife Sandra later ran for president in three separate elections, but never one. In 2019, she was arrested on charges of violating campaign finance rules. The case was dismissed three years later in 2022.
President Alvaro Colomb died in January 2023 at the age of 71. He had been suffering from a suffragile cancer and pulmonary emphysema. His legacy as president was significant, with a focus on expanding social programs and assistance to Guatemala's citizens who gained increased access to health services, education, and social security. President Colomb 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 Colomb left office with a 95.83% disapproval rating. 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 organized crime and drug trafficking, the justice system, and violence, but improvements have been made. In October 2022, writer and narrator Edgar Castillo, a first-generation Guatemalan American, launched a 10-episode podcast about the murder of Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano. 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 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. 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 Mendezabo 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 when turned into entertainment and deployed on social media. After the truth about Rodrigo's murder was revealed by Carlos Castrosana 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 to face and crooked.
But to many people, Rodrigo Rosenberg-Mazano 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. In 2011, Rodrigo's son Eduardo wrote an op-ed in which he reflected on his father's legacy, writing, What the Find 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.