Even in a pandemic, there’s no slowdown for swindlers in Latin America. From Argentina to Panama, a number of officials have been forced to resign as reports of fraudulent purchases of ventilators, masks and other medical supplies pile up. The thefts are driven by price-gouging from manufacturers and profiteering by politically connected middlemen who see the crisis as an opportunity for graft. “Whenever there´s a dire situation, spending rules are relaxed and there´s always someone around looking to take advantage to make a profit,” said José Ugaz, a former Peruvian prosecutor who jailed former President Alberto Fujimori and was chairman of Transparency International from 2014-17. Coronavirus clusters are still spreading in Latin America, fueling a spike in deaths, swamping already-precarious hospitals and threatening to ravage slumping economies. Against this backdrop, reports of fraud have proliferated. On Tuesday, police in Rio de Janeiro raided the governor’s residence as part of a widening probe into the alleged embezzlement of part of the $150 million in public funds earmarked for building field hospitals. In Colombia, 14 of 32 governors are under investigation for crimes ranging from embezzlement to unlawfully awarding no-bid contracts.