Of all the schemes that have siphoned resources from Latin American countries fighting the coronavirus, the body bag conspiracy might be the most brazen.
Last month, prosecutors in Ecuador announced they had identified a criminal ring that had colluded with health officials to win a contract selling body bags to hospitals at 13 times the real price.
Then one of the men implicated, Daniel Salcedo, fled Ecuador in a small plane that crashed in Peru. Mr. Salcedo is now recovering in the custody of the Ecuador police.
Even as Latin America has emerged as an epicenter of the pandemic, with deaths and infections soaring, efforts to contain the crisis have been undermined by a litany of corruption scandals.
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