Image credit: Rodrigo Urzagasti / AFP via Getty Images
September 7, 2026
South Paris, Maine
An extended campaign of media disinformation contributed to the recent election victories of extreme rightwing presidential candidates in Latin America. Massive, indiscriminate, and one-way digital communications took on a new prominence.
One individual and his associates took the lead. He and they served the wealthy and politically powerful across the region and farther afield. US influence lurked in the background. A new assertiveness of emboldened rightwing forces shows, both collectively and internationally.
On August 17 in Bolivia, two thugs shot and almost killed lawyer Nadia Beller outside a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, epicenter of rightwing reaction in the country. Hospitalized, she talked with reporters and the police. Her revelations led to the arrest the next day of Fernando Cerimedo, her partner, and to his preventive detention for 180 days.
Criminal investigation is underway. Charges so far are: attempted murder, domestic abuse, illicit enrichment, and narcotrafficking. Beller described Cerimedo as angry “about her pregnancy and concerned about her knowledge of illegal activities he was carrying out … [in various] countries, to promote conservative politicians and attack progressives.”
Her accusations aligned with messages on Cerimedo’s phone reviewed by investigators. They found at his residence “hundreds of thousands of dollars” and computer equipment used to run a “bots farm.”
Beller, a former parliamentary candidate, had worked in the socialist MAS government of Evo Morales (2007-2019). She recently was serving as an advisor in the conservative, US-supported government of President Rodrigo Paz, elected on November 8, 2025. She declared that María Elena Urquidi Barbery, President Paz’s wife, was engaged in illegal activity.
Cerimedo claimed he worked as an unpaid adviser in Paz’s government. His office adjoined that of the president. He told investigators that “outside consulting work” provides him with 1$ million per year, or per month; his accounts varied. His importance to President Paz shows in an photo of Secretary of State Marcio Rubio conferring with Paz at the Shield of the Americas Summit in Miami in March ─ with Cerimedo at the president’s side.
Cerimedo’s bots farm shaped Bolivian opinion prior to Paz’s electoral victory in 2025. A bot farm, as described by journalist Miguel Ángel San Martín, “is a network of many accounts or devices controlled automatically to generate fake likes, followers, comments, or views; to post or amplify messages en masse on social media; to click on ads or manipulate polls; to automatically create accounts; and to engage in spamming, fraud, or attempts to overwhelm [electronic] services. They are … extremely difficult to detect.”
Voting undermined in Honduras
Cerimedo’s central role in determining the outcome of Honduras’s recent presidential election came to light in August. The social democratic Libre Party held power. Prior to presidential voting on November 30, 2025, Marlon Ochoa, Libre’s representative on the National Election Council, publicized leaked audio recordings of conversations of the National and Liberal Parties’ representatives. They were insisting that delivery of votes and the count should be delayed. They called for victory of either of their preferred candidates being announced well before all votes were tallied.
It happened: hundreds of thousands of votes were never counted. Millions of text messages warned that remittances would not arrive from the US, if the Libre Party’s Rixi Moncada won. Prior to the voting, President Trump released Juan Orlando Hernández, Honduras’s former president for the National Party, from a US prison. He had been serving 43 years for drug trafficking. National Party candidate Nasry Asfura had placed third in opinion polls. Now he was Honduras’s new president.
On August 26, Marlon Ochoa, the former national election councilor currently living in exile, reported that Fernando Ceremedo’s voice was heard on leaked audio recordings he delivered to the attorney general’s office in December 2025. There, Cerimedo talked about stuffing votes for Asfura into ballot boxes, discarding votes, and not accepting a “vote-by-vote recount.”
In Chile
Cerimedo tried to disrupt the 2020 Chilean referendum on new Constitution that would have replaced one inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship. Socialist parliamentarian Juan Santana claimed recently that Cerimedo’s own consultancy firm had staged an opinion poll aimed at falsely showing that the “Yes” vote was losing ground. (It passed by 78%.) Cerimedo supported the “Reject” option.
Juan Santana accuses three officials in the government of current right-wing President José Antonio Kast of cooperating with Cerimedo in that endeavor. He claims that bots let loose by Cerimedo eased candidate Kast’s path to electoral victory in 2025, also that “artificial accounts and trolls” disparaged progressive presidential candidate Evelyn Matthei.
In Peru
The results of second-round presidential voting in Peru on June 7 were close. According to elciudadano.com, rightwing candidate Keiko Fujimori had included “Cerimedo as one of her main electoral campaign advisors.” In the first round of voting, “Cerimedo’s network … began to operate covertly in the country through bots, trolls, and false content.” He “launched a disinformation campaign against progressive candidate Roberto Sánchez,” who was ahead in the polls. Ultimately, “the dirty work of Cerimedo” was decisive in overcoming Sánchez’s lead.
To be able to intervene in Peru, Cerimedo and Spanish journalist Javier Negre (see below) built a relationship with Carlos Díaz-Rosillo. He has served in two Trump administrations, in the White House and then the Department of Defense. The Department’s website proclaims that Díaz-Rosillo advises the Secretary of Defense “in all matters related to defense policy and strategy in the Western Hemisphere.”
Díaz-Rosillo and Keiko Fujimori are acquainted. In 2025, Díaz-Rosillo honored her at the Florida-based Adam Smith Center, which he founded and directed. Fujimori must have been appreciative. She had only recently emerged from a failed prosecution on money-laundering chargesAccepting Díaz-Rosillo’s recommendation of Cerimedo, she might have been returning the favor.
In Colombia
Following the June 21 election victory of Colombia’s new reactionary president Abelardo de la Espriella, outgoing President Gustavo Petro attributed leftist candidate Ivan Cepeda’s defeat to a plague of bots and internet-borne disinformation. The source, he suggested, was the Israeli cyber-intelligence company BlackCore.
Now, however, Petro relies on the forensic analysis of Fernando Cerimedo’s phone. It suggests he collaborated with Colombian electoral officials. Cerimedo refers to “more than two million bots and fake profiles managed by automated farms operating from abroad and the city of Medellín.” Petro called for annulment of the election results. He repeated the accusations in an interview with Mexico’s La Jornada newspaper.
In Argentina and Brazil
Cerimedo had meddled in elections in Argentina. According to Nadia Beller, President Javier Milei paid Cerimedo $800,000 USD per month to carry out online disinformation. Serving as chief technology and communications officer for Milei’s successful campaign in 2023, he secured large donations and expanded his social media capabilities. Cerimedo informed La Nación newspaper that year that, “He controls ‘farms’ of thousands of trolls, bot accounts, and other digital tools put into service for Milei’s party.”
He exercised his technical and digital capabilities, and his scheming, in Brazil. Cerimedo joined Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential campaigns and provided assistance to Jair Bolsonaro’s failed coup attempt that ended in January, 2023.
Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, now living in Florida, in February 2026 hosted the “Hispanic Prosperity Gala” held at Mar-a-Lago. Argentine President Milei delivered the keynote address. Bolsonaro presented Cerimedo with an award honoring him as the “Hispanic Political Consultant of the Year.”
Cast of characters
On being honored at the Mar-a-Lago Gala, Cerimedo began by saying that, “I want to say something in English; thank you to Brad Parscale!” US operative Parscale had tutored Cermedo in the uses of social media, trolls, bots, and algorithms for electioneering purposes. The latter told The New York Times that, “Brad set up all the infrastructure that I work with.” Their partnership continued.
Parscale worked for Donald Trump, serving as digital media director for his 2016 presidential campaign and campaign manager for part of his 2020 campaign. Cerimedo’s collaboration with the well-connected Parscale may have allowed him to make connections of his own
Cerimedo partnered with the Argentinian-American Damián Merlo. This lobbyist owner of the Miami-based Latin America Advisory Group (LAAG) had worked at the US Interests Section in Havana and as program officer at the interventionist International Republican Institute. Cerimedo’s connection to Merlo’s LAAG lobbying group provided him with indirect access to the Florida congressional delegation and to executive branch officials responsible for Latin America.
The duo formed the Numen publicity company, which undertook to generate US support for Javier Milei’s presidential campaign in 2023. They shaped publicity for the US, and advocated for Milei among US congressperson and with the media.
As noted by the Cubadebate Media Observatory, “Cerimedo built a corporate base in Miami and a transnational media network. The US would be its center of operations. It benefited from privileged links with the top power structures within the Trump administration, in particular with Marco Rubio.”
After Milei’s electoral win, The Numan organization, helped along by Brad Parscale’s technical help and his travel to Bolivia, played important roles in the 2025 electoral victories of Paz in Bolivia and Asfura in Honduras. Numen also appears as an “academy” offering “digital and political marketing courses” in the region.
Cerimedo and two Argentinian journalists formed La Derecho Diario (Daily of the Right) prior to 2020. It’s a widely-read, pan-Hispanic source of news and views with a reactionary slant; there’s an English-language version. A recent story titled “Wave of Moroccan immigrants arrives in Brazil thanks to Lula” typifies its deceptive content.
The Spanish impresario Javier Negre, a “megaphone” for the far-right Vox political party, owns a far-right media conglomerate. In 2024 he purchased 50% interest in Cerimedo’s La Derecho Diario and took over as director. With Cerimedo now in trouble, he abandoned the platform.
Loose ends
On his digital rampage across Latin America, Cerimedo was a prominent soldier in war being carried out by Latin America’s extreme rightwing. He and others built a network of media and digital communications. It serves the wealthy and politically powerful in Latin America and farther afield. Cerimedo found friends and supporters in Washington and in the southern Florida, hotbed of emigre agitation.
The US government has probably provided support for his activities. Details are scarce. There’s no certainty. Evo Morales, the former Bolivian president ousted in a US-supported coup in 2019, claims Cerimedo was working for the CIA. Cerimedo’s former partner Nadia Beller says likewise.
Lots of money cropped up along his path, as noted above. That may signal official US involvement. The US government directs vast sums to national security. That category includes undercover activities of all kinds. Some of Cerimedo’s projects may have been classified as such.
A report appearing on ciudadano.com on August 27 is relevant. Investigators looking at Cerimedo’s mobile phone found “codes linked to a network of digital wallets.” The report refers to a “cold wallet.” That’s something allowing for “the discreet transfer of large sums of money.” Investigators discovered “transactions totaling $44,100 … over the last six months.” They “uncovered accounts handling staggering sums, including one that holds $132 million.”
W.T. Whitney, Jr., is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician and lives in rural Maine.
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