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A political operative who helped engineer far-right political victories across Latin America is now jailed in Bolivia for allegedly hiring a hitman to murder his pregnant ex-girlfriend. He also has strong ties to Trumpworld and played a key role as an adviser to Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz, functioning in effect as a shadow cabinet member with more influence than some of the government’s actual ministers.
Like many others in the far-right political universe, Paz is now trying mightily to distance himself from Fernando Cerimedo, who built his career running bot networks and disinformation operations across Latin America. Cerimedo was the strategic mastermind behind a number of far-right political victories in the region, including in Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Colombia. He has documented U.S. lobbying ties running through former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale and Miami consultant Damián Merlo. In Bolivia, he was Paz’s chief adviser for the 2025 campaign that ended nearly two decades of socialist rule by former President Evo Morales’ MAS party.
Soon after taking office, Paz cut taxes for the ultra-rich, invited American investment and IMF financing, looked to privatize indigenous lands in an indigenous-majority country, and invited the U.S. Southern Command and Drug Enforcement Administration back into the country. He also began prosecuting MAS and left-wing figures, jailing former President Luis Arce and prominent union leaders, and went after former President Evo Morales. Cerimedo had spent months pushing for these policies, both publicly and privately, and used his social media accounts to wage war on what he called “dirty leftists.”
According to Vice President Edman Lara, Cerimedo kept an office near the president’s own workspace in the Palacio Quemado, wrote speeches, and controlled access to Paz himself. He was present at the “Shield of the Americas” summit at Mar-a-Lago, the Trump administration’s regional security initiative, sitting across from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and alongside Paz and his chief of staff Fernando Aramayo.
“During press conferences, [Cerimedo] would direct the media, and even us and the cabinet members, as if he was orchestrating the whole thing,” one staffer in the Bolivian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Drop Site, who requested their name be withheld over fears of reprisal.
Bolivian Plurinational Deputy Claudia Herbas told Drop Site that Bolivia’s President Rodrigo Paz “lied to the public” about his relationship with Cerimedo.
“[He] said there was no relationship, when we had direct concrete evidence to the contrary. There is clearly a cover up of the facts, and denial of reality by this government,” said Herbas.
Cerimedo was arrested August 18, 2026 at the Santa Cruz airport, allegedly trying to flee to Buenos Aires, and is accused of planning the killing of his Bolivian girlfriend, Nadia Beller, who survived being shot three times by assassins posing as app-based delivery drivers. Prosecutors allege that Cerimedo contracted hitmen to kill Beller over fears she would expose his alleged criminal actions. Since the shooting, Beller has appeared from her hospital bed in media outlets throughout Latin America, sharing intimate details of her former partner’s work.
Since Cerimedo’s arrest Paz has tried to distance himself, publishing a crudely edited, nearly five-minute video denying claims that Cerimedo acted in an official capacity. During his transfer to the high-security Chonchocoro prison, Cerimedo delivered a message to Paz, telling a local outlet: “May he forgive me for not heeding his advice.”
One former advisor to Paz, who left his government post over policy disagreements, alleged that there is a government effort to cover up Cermido’s role in the government.
“It is clear that nobody involved is being honest about what transpired,” said the advisor, who requested anonymity to avoid retaliation.
A leaked recording of a minister-level Bolivian official describing Cerimedo as someone who “gave orders to ministers” has undercut Paz’s own public denials of closeness to him. Since the arrest, Cerimedo’s business partner Javier Negre has also moved to sever ties, saying Cerimedo agreed to sell his 50% stake in their jointly owned right-wing outlet and Breitbart copycat, La Derecha Diario.
Cerimedo’s alleged criminal behavior extended well beyond Bolivia. Marlon Ochoa, ousted from his post on Honduras’s National Electoral Council after objecting to certification of the 2025 vote, told Drop Site that Cerimedo, as “MAGA’s man in Latin America,” was the intermediary between Nasry Asfura’s right-wing National Party campaign and Trumpworld.
Ochoa’s complaint, filed with Attorney General Johel Zelaya on December 23, 2025, alleges Cerimedo’s operation stuffed ballot boxes for Asfura, discarded votes for other candidates, secured the alignment of the Armed Forces behind the result, and pressured election authorities to certify a winner without a full recount. He has since posted a recording of Cerimedo describing election fraud.
In the recording, a voice Ochoa identifies as Cerimedo’s says: “The votes where more nationalist votes are coming from, if there were votes for anyone else, they are gone, they are fixed. We will celebrate once the counting is over.”
“The elections of November 30, 2025 were marked by open external interference,” Ochoa told Drop Site. “Cerimedo is an international criminal, an electoral filibuster in Latin America, sheltered under the mantle of impunity of Donald Trump... he has the luxury of sailing like a pirate in our countries, but since there is no perfect crime, he is already imprisoned in Bolivia,” he added.
Ochoa has called into question the integrity of the 2025 election, alleging that the election authority declared a winner without counting all ballots or processing challenges, and that Congress then impeached and expelled him from the council for exposing it. He said he has received death threats he attributes to allies of Cerimedo.
Julián Macías Tovar, a Madrid-based data analyst who has spent years mapping bot networks and disinformation campaigns across Latin America and Spain, told Drop Site that Cerimedo’s operation was never a one-off.
“There’s a big ecosystem, international and regional, of figures and networks of hate and disinformation,” he said, while dismissing much of Cerimedo’s personal mythology as invention. “These are all charlatans. They sell lies, like that Cerimedo worked in the White House, and they use bots, social media to amplify narratives, lies, and hate to sell these candidates.”
Bolivian lawmaker Claudia Herbas emphasized that Cerimedo’s reach went beyond Bolivia.
“This is about a global criminal network. I have sent two petitions [to the government] so that they can explain this to the Bolivian people,” Herbas told Drop Site.
The Chilean Chamber of Deputies voted September 2 to establish a special investigative commission to probe Cerimedo’s political activities, and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has suggested that the Mexican Congress look into Cerimedo’s operations as well.
“They will not stop with Cerimedo, this continues without him; digital tech, surveillance, and social media will still be there,” said Macías Tovar.
A second source close to Cerimedo who also requested anonymity for their safety added, “Cerimedo is entirely replaceable, and the right won’t let one legal case get in the way of their gaining power.”
Luis Alberto Echazú, a former minister and cabinet official under Evo Morales, told Drop Site that Paz’s work with advisors linked to foreign-influence operations rises to the level of treason.
“The rulers who, like Rodrigo Paz, have handed over state political decisions to this kind of foreign agent disguised as advisors must be put on trial for treason against the homeland,” said Echazú.
Bolivian lawmaker Herbas, for her part, insists that justice must be carried out for the attempted murder of Beller and the alleged corruption by the Paz government.
“The Cerimedo issue in our country has uncovered the mountains of corruption we’re experiencing under Rodrigo Paz’s government. We need to know even more, and we need the Prosecutor’s Office and the Judiciary to truly act with objectivity, with transparency, and we want to know what has happened, especially regarding illicit enrichment,” Herbas told Drop Site.
“This is about corruption of the president, his government, and his friends.”