The murder of Lenca environmentalist Berta Cáceres was financed with funds from the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project. Specifically, funds from international financial institutions were used, notably those provided by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI) and the Netherlands Development Bank (FMO), which were used to pay the hitmen who attempted to take the life of the land defender on the night of March 2, 2016, in La Esperanza, Honduras.
This is one of the main findings of the report, released on Monday morning (12) and prepared by the Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI Honduras), an independent mechanism that works to assist in the investigations into those responsible for the murder of the Lenca leader.
The conclusions of the GIEI Honduras reveal that Cáceres’ murder was not a random act, but the culmination of a prolonged process of persecution and criminalization against the Lenca leader due to her participation in the defense of the Gualcarque River, which was to be dammed by the imposition of the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project.
Following their investigations, international experts reported that Cáceres’ murder was the result of an organized criminal operation, planned and executed through a structure involving the participation of executives and staff of the company Desarrollos Energéticos S.A. (DESA), as well as hitmen and intermediaries with military training, supported by the omission and tolerance of their criminal activities by various sectors of the Honduran state.
“The GIEI concluded that the murder of Berta Cáceres constituted a corporate, financial, and political crime, perpetrated through a complex criminal architecture that brought together economic interests, international financing, security structures, institutional corruption, and serious state omissions, forming a modus operandi sustained over time,” denounces the report, which was endorsed by the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (Copinh), the Center for Justice and International Law (Cejil), and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Another of the main findings points to the responsibility for the crime of various members of the Atala family, businessmen, and majority shareholders of the Agua Zarca project, who played important roles in shaping the structure that made Berta Cáceres’ murder possible.
The evidence analyzed includes digital communications, telephone intercepts, and bank documentation that establish that business actors actively participated in the implementation of strategies aimed at neutralizing the opposition of the Lenca communities to the hydroelectric project.
Those responsible
Among the businessmen accused of participating in the criminal structure are Jose Eduardo and Pedro Atala, who coordinated the group known as “Seguridad PHAZ” (PHAZ Security), through which they coordinated actions to gather information and monitor the activities of Cáceres and COPINH. The GIEI highlights that Pedro Atala played a central role in articulating their interests with the actions of officials in the Ministry of Security and the National Police to promote evictions and the use of state resources to ensure the continuity of the energy project amid a context of growing social conflict.
“The GIEI found that Pedro Atala repeatedly expressed the need to take extreme measures to end Berta Cáceres’ leadership role. These statements, made in irreconcilable terms—‘either them or us’—must be understood in the context of a progressive escalation of actions in response to growing opposition to the project, which included surveillance, armed incursions, and, ultimately, the victim’s execution,” the international experts emphasize.
Another person involved is Daniel Atala Midence, who is responsible for managing the finances of the Agua Zarca project and who, from the early stages of the conflict, expressed his willingness to resort to violence against the Lenca defender. According to the GIEI, another person involved is Jacobo Atala, representative of the majority shareholder, Inversiones Las Jacarandas, before the FMO and the BCIE, who, in addition to being president of the BAC bank, channeled resources from international loans to finance the criminal structure.
The GIEI maintains that, in the days following Cáceres’ murder, the masterminds continued to coordinate their efforts to manage the repercussions of the crime. Through analysis of telephone antenna data, they identified that Jacobo, Eduardo, and Pedro Atala maintained repeated communications with Daniel Atala Midence and Roberto David Castillo, convicted for his participation in the murder, to control damage through negotiations with high-level political and business actors.
Financing of the crime
According to a financial analysis, the GIEI determined that, of a total of more than US$18 million allocated to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, approximately 67% (equivalent to more than US$12 million) was diverted and/or mismanaged. Through an examination of the accounting information of DESA and related companies, international experts identified a systematic pattern of embezzlement of funds that would have allowed for the payment of hitmen, as well as the maintenance of logistics before and after the murder of Berta Cáceres.
This is consistent with the testimony of Mariano Díaz Chavez, who supplied and managed the weapons used in various violent acts against Lenca defenders and members of COPINH. On May 2, 2016, Díaz stated that a sum of 500,000 lempiras was offered for the murder of Cáceres, an amount that would be delivered by a DESA manager. Based on this information, the GIEI identified that the source of these funds came from a loan granted by the FMO and the BCIE through a deposit of more than $2.6 million that was transferred in December 2015 to the company CONCASA, linked to DESA.
The GIEI highlights that in the 48 hours following the murder (March 3 and 4, 2016), transactions were carried out to convert US$24,320.77 into 549,892.00 lempiras, and three checks were cashed for amounts totaling the 500,000 lempiras indicated by Díaz Chávez. The international experts’ investigations maintain that the checks were cashed by low-ranking DESA employees who were trusted by the convicted Roberto David Castillo.
The investigation documented more than 200 communications between March 2 and 3, 2016, connecting the hitmen with the logistics coordinators and the latter with DESA executives and members of the Atala family. According to financial transactions, these coincide with telephone activity and geolocation data that place Castillo with Daniel Atala and Sergio Rodríguez (DESA’s environmental and social manager) at the company’s offices hours before Cáceres’ murder. Likewise, intense communication activity is documented between Castillo and Pedro and Jacobo Atala, as well as Jorge Ávila, the company’s head of security.
Records also show that Douglas Bustillo, a former soldier who served as DESA’s head of security, activated antennas in the Torre Alianza area on the afternoon of March 4 and later traveled to the Metromall shopping center, where his phone coincided for several minutes with that of Henrry Javier Hernández Rodríguez, another former soldier involved in the crime. Immediately afterward, Hernández Rodríguez went to La Ceiba to meet with Edilson Atilio Duarte Meza, also convicted as the perpetrator of the crime. “These elements support the hypothesis of an operationally coordinated cash delivery in the aftermath of the murder,” the GIEI maintains.
State omission and corporate collusion
In its conclusions, the GIEI asserts that there is evidence of deliberate obstruction of the criminal investigation into Cáceres’ murder from the outset, which had a direct impact on the criminal proceedings. These include the dissemination of narratives that sought to reduce the murder to a “love triangle,” the criminalization of witnesses, and the mass interception of telephone lines belonging to Copinh members, while at the same time failing to investigate key corporate actors.
In addition, the experts identified the incorporation of false evidence through the intervention of police officers participating in the investigation, as well as possible acts of coercion against witnesses. In short, “the GIEI identified structural omissions that prevented a complete investigation of the murder of Berta Cáceres,” which, they assert, is evidence of an institutional capture mechanism designed to guarantee impunity for the intellectual actors.
Also noteworthy is the role played by companies that, through complacent audits and fictitious progress reports, enabled DESA to obtain the financial resources to continue with the hydroelectric project. International auditing and consulting firms issued deficient or false technical and socio-environmental certifications.
The GIEI found that DESA made payments to KPMG for almost 500,000 lempiras despite serious omissions in detecting financial irregularities. The international engineering consulting firm Pöyry SAC received payments exceeding $150,000 for certifying non-existent work progress. Monkey Forest Consulting obtained transfers exceeding $72,000 and €32,000 by falsely certifying compliance with socio-environmental plans. L.R & Asociados received payments of more than $170,000 for a procedure that omitted documentary fraud and the absence of prior consultation. “The GIEI concluded that these actions constituted a financial and reputational shielding mechanism that allowed for the diversion of resources and the continuation of the project.”
Finally, the GIEI concluded that Berta Cáceres’ murder “was made possible by the existence of a structured, deliberate, and functional financial scheme designed to support the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project, manage the territorial conflict, and directly and indirectly finance acts of violence, corruption, and organized crime.”
Original text by Aldo Santiago published in Avispa Midia on January 12, 2026.
Translated by Schools for Chiapas.