Chiquita found liable for financing paramilitary group | CNN Business

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A Florida jury on Monday found banana company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing the Colombian paramilitary group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC).

The jury in the civil case, in federal court in the Southern District of Florida, found that “Chiquita knowingly provided substantial assistance to the AUC to a degree sufficient to create a foreseeable risk of harm to others.”

Chiquita, has been ordered to pay a total of $38.3 million to the families of eight victims of the AUC, which was a far-right paramilitary group that was designated a terrorist organization by the US. The group disbanded in 2006, according to Stanford University’s Mapping Militants Project.

In 2007, Chiquita pleaded guilty to making over 100 payments to the AUC totaling over $1.7 million despite the group being designated a terrorist organization. Chiquita recorded the AUC payments as “security services,” though the company never received any actual services from these payments, according to a 2007 US Justice Department press release. The company agreed to pay the US government a $25 million fine, the US said in its release.

In an amended Florida lawsuit, which was filed in 2008, the plaintiffs alleged payments from Chiquita to the AUC propped up the paramilitary group’s violence in Colombia and that the company should be held liable for the group’s murders.

CNN has reached out to Chiquita’s legal representatives for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.