Breaking News: Chiquita Brands Loses $39 Million Lawsuit By Victims Over Funding Colombian Paramilitary Mafias

Today in a civil trial taking place in Florida, a jury ruled in favor of 17 plaintiffs, victims of AUC (Autodefensas Unidos de Colombia) violence, ordering the Banana company Chiquita Brands International to pay up to $2 million USD for each of the deaths of eight relatives. In total the company was ordered to pay $38.3 million USD.

The ruling means that North American consumers of Chiquita Bananas were unwittingly funding a violent criminal mafia in Colombia.

The trial, which took place in West Palm Beach, Florida, started April 24. Chiquita was held liable for its total of $1.7 million dollar payments between 1997 to 2004 to the AUC, a violent right-wing criminal group that while first was organized as vigilantes against communist rebels such as the FARC and ELN, quickly devolved into narcotrafficking, extortion, sexual violence, and other crimes. In other legal actions, Chiquita was also found guilty of payments to communist guerillas as well.

In its defense, Chiquita claimed that it was obligated to pay the AUC what mounted to extortion in order to protect the company’s workers in Colombia, though the jury did not accept the excuse, as the payments simply served to expand the AUC in the Magdalena Medio and Urabá regions of Colombia, areas that still suffer from violence and crime today, often involving AUC descendant groups such as the Clan del Golfo Mafia.

Chiquita has already pleaded guilty in 2007 and fined $25 million USD by the US Justice Department, but as a criminal fine, that money did not reach Colombian victims. Chiquita actually sued the National Security Archive seeking to keep documentation of the company’s criminal activity secret and unpublished.

See also: The Chiquita Papers – Banana Giant’s Paramilitary Payoffs Detailed in Trove of Declassified Legal, Financial Documents