The government of Ecuador has paid at least $867,000 to Miren LLC, based in the Suwanee suburb of Atlanta, an American public relations firm run by a former high-level government official, reports Lachlan Markay:
Documents Reveal Ecuadorian PR Efforts in Suburban AtlantaEcuador’s attorney general has paid at least $867,000 for PR services
Miren is owned by Tomas Peribonio, Ecuador’s former Minister of Commerce and Industry. According to a U.S. public relations consultant with whom he has worked, Peribonio served as an adviser to the attorney general, Diego Garcia, while being paid for PR services in the United States.
The attorney general’s expenditure reports say the payments were for “for media services, public relations, and imaging of [the Attorney General] and the Republic of Ecuador in major U.S. cities.”
. . .
A Justice Department spokesman confirmed that neither Miren nor Peribonio is or ever has been registered as an agent of a foreign government.
Compared to the $6.4 million contract between the government of Ecuador and Brooklyn-based MCSquared, the $867,000 is chump change.
