On the final day of September, Guatemalan police escorted 67-year-old businessman Jorge Gaitán Paredes across the border into Salvadoran custody. The transfer, conducted under heavy security at the international crossing with INTERPOL’s National Central Bureau coordinating, marks a significant development in what prosecutors describe as a sprawling transnational scheme to defraud Terra Towers—a telecommunications infrastructure company operating across six Latin American nations.
The case now unfolding in Salvadoran courts appears far more complex than a simple corporate fraud. At its center lies a web of allegations connecting minority shareholders backed by Goldman Sachs, contested arbitration proceedings in New York, and accusations of a corporate takedown strategy that unfolded during the same period Goldman operated under a Deferred Prosecution Agreement for its role in the notorious 1MDB scandal.
A Family Affair with American Connections
Jorge Gaitán Paredes doesn’t stand alone in the dock. His son, Jorge Gaitán Castro, remains imprisoned in Guatemala awaiting his own extradition hearing. Both men previously held executive positions at Continental Towers, the parent entity of Terra Towers, which made them majority shareholder Jorge Hernández Ortiz’s own employees—until prosecutors say they turned on the company from within.
El Salvador’s Attorney General has painted a picture of systematic betrayal. According to court filings, the Gaitáns allegedly formed part of a criminal enterprise that included three American private equity executives from TPG Peppertree Capital Management: Ryan David Lepene, E. Howard Mandel, and John Joseph Ranieri. All five men now face INTERPOL red notices charging them with aggravated fraud, extortion, and illicit association.
The Sixth Court Against Organized Crime in San Salvador recently expanded the charges against Gaitán Paredes, adding fresh allegations that he coordinated pressure campaigns and threats against company executives and attorneys—tactics prosecutors claim were designed to force compliance with a controversial plan to devalue and sell Continental Towers at a fraction of its assessed worth.
Goldman Sachs and the “Squeeze-Out Merger”
The Goldman Sachs connection transforms this from a regional corporate dispute into something with potential international ramifications. According to a 2021 civil complaint filed in Florida courts and detailed in reporting by Sarawak Report, Goldman Sachs financed Peppertree’s acquisition of a minority stake in Continental Towers in October 2015. Goldman also took a direct position through its subsidiary AMLQ Holdings (CAY) Ltd, collectively giving the minority shareholders control over two of four board seats despite owning only 45.55 percent of the company.
Critically, Goldman placed one of its own bankers—Milton Milman—as an “Observer” on the Continental Towers board. This arrangement, Terra Towers would later allege, enabled the minority shareholders to systematically obstruct company operations. Important contracts allegedly went unexecuted or were steered to competitors like Torrecom Partners, driving down Continental Towers’ valuation from independent estimates exceeding 900 million dollars to roughly 400 million.
The knockout punch came in October 2020—the precise month Goldman’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement over 1MDB took effect—when the minority shareholders pushed for a forced sale to Torrecom at that depressed price. What made the maneuver particularly striking, according to court documents, was that Goldman Sachs was simultaneously financing Torrecom’s acquisition bid. The proposed deal structure would have given both Peppertree and Goldman equity positions in the merged entity while excluding Terra Towers’ majority shareholder entirely.
Terra Towers characterized this as textbook breach of fiduciary duty: Goldman and Peppertree stood on both sides of the transaction, advocating that Continental Towers accept an offer they themselves were funding, without initially disclosing the conflict. El Salvador’s criminal prosecutors appear to have reached similar conclusions.
The Arbitration Controversy
When Terra Holdings refused the Torrecom offer in early 2021, Peppertree and Goldman invoked their shareholder agreement and dragged the dispute to arbitration at New York’s American Arbitration Association. The proceeding would become nearly as controversial as the underlying fraud allegations.
Arbitrator Marc Goldstein issued what legal observers call a “sua sponte” ruling—essentially a preliminary judgment made without full briefing or argument—ordering the forced sale to proceed. This silenced Terra’s fraud defense before it could be formally presented. Goldstein would later direct Continental Towers to reinstate Jorge Gaitán Castro as CEO despite his incarceration in Guatemala on embezzlement charges—a directive that raised eyebrows given that Guatemalan corporate records contested whether Gaitán was ever officially appointed CEO.
By early 2024, Goldstein’s panel imposed a devastating 354 million dollar penalty against Jorge Hernández for refusing to comply with the arbitration orders. Continental Towers has steadfastly refused to recognize these rulings.
The arbitration took an extraordinary turn when an anonymous “Wall Street Whistleblower” website published allegations in March 2022 claiming a Goldman Sachs insider had reported that an account bearing Goldstein’s name received a 250,000 dollar wire transfer on June 29, 2021—just three days after his appointment—with the funds immediately withdrawn via cash instrument before the account was closed within 24 hours.
Goldstein vehemently denies receiving any improper payment and dismissed the whistleblower site as unreliable. However, research commissioned by Continental Towers using “grey list” email traffic monitoring reportedly showed communications between Goldstein and Goldman Sachs’ New York office—despite his initial oath that he had no connections to any party in the case. When confronted, Goldstein amended his disclosure to acknowledge that a second cousin who had worked as a Goldman partner maintained an office at 200 West Street, the bank’s headquarters, and that they exchanged social emails. He maintains the cousin retired before the case began and had no knowledge of the dispute.
A Regional Reckoning
With both Gaitáns now in custody and INTERPOL red notices active for the three American executives, the legal machinery grinds forward. Guatemala has pledged full judicial cooperation with El Salvador, and an “intervening party”—functioning like an official receiver—is expected to seek a freeze on the contested New York arbitration judgment pending resolution of the criminal proceedings.
Sarawak Report indicates that additional criminal complaints have been filed in other Latin American jurisdictions, with mutual legal assistance requests reaching banks in the Cayman Islands, Isle of Man, Switzerland, and Singapore. All of the alleged conduct occurred during Goldman’s Deferred Prosecution Agreement period following the 1MDB scandal—a detail that, if substantiated, could theoretically reactivate prosecution of the bank itself, as the DPA specifically warned against further criminal activity through October 2023.
For now, Salvadoran prosecutors frame their pursuit as establishing a precedent in combating corporate and financial crimes that destabilize not merely individual companies, but the telecommunications infrastructure underpinning an entire region’s economic development. Whether that pursuit ultimately reaches beyond Central America to touch one of Wall Street’s most powerful institutions remains an open question.
