Cuban Mauricio Claver-Carone, a former member of the National Security Council during Donald Trump’s administration after years of anti-Castro lobbying in Washington, is now the target of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) investigation. President for alleged personal ties to a subordinate and misappropriation of the institution’s funds.
The allegations arose after the IDB received an email containing the complaints, which were analyzed by the board on Tuesday last week and at a meeting on Thursday, revealed British agency Reuters, which had received confirmation of the meetings from three anonymous sources .
The IDB would not confirm the news, nor did Claver-Carone respond to emails. In Cuba he believes he knows with whom the bank’s president allegedly has a personal relationship that may have started when they both served on the National Security Council. But for now, he refrains from disclosing it for lack of convincing evidence.
One of the sources, an IDB person with direct knowledge of the matter, said the directors had discussed hiring an outside firm to investigate the allegations and asked Claver-Carone to step down from the presidency for a period of time.
The other two sources confirmed that the bank’s 14 directors, its general counsel and deputy secretary met on Tuesday last week to discuss the allegations and how to proceed in a two-and-a-half-hour virtual meeting.
Directors met again on Thursday to draft a resolution to hire an outside firm to investigate the allegations, the bank’s source said. And they decided not to relieve Claver-Carone of their duties, the IDB person said with direct knowledge.
Personal relationships between IDB directors are prohibited under the bank’s rules. The company’s code of ethics states, “You must not participate in any decision related to the employment of any person with whom you have an intimate relationship.”
The anonymous email to the bank’s board of directors and ethics officer alleges that Claver-Carone had a relationship with a strategist who reports to him. The email also accuses Claver-Carone and the employee in question of embezzling IDB funds, a source said without elaborating, according to Reuters.
Before joining the IDB in 2020, Claver-Carone served as Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council under Trump.
The IDB is a much smaller development bank than the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank, but it is a major player in Latin America. She was responsible for $23.4 billion in financing and other financial commitments for Latin America and the Caribbean as of 2021, according to the bank.
Claver-Carone, a persistent hawk against Cuba, faced fierce backlash ahead of his election as IDB president in 2020 from some member states, including Argentina and Mexico, who resented breaking the bank’s tradition since 1959, a Having presidents from Latin America American country.