U.S. citizens sue Bolivia for $250 million
Two Bolivian nationals have filed suit against their native country, seeking $250 million for family land holdings seized by the government more than a half century ago.
Genoveva and Marcel Loza, heirs to the Loza family’s landholdings in Bolivia, claim in a lawsuit filed Friday in Miami federal court that the holdings included land where the Bolivian capitol and international airport now stand in La Paz.
The brother and sister were adopted by the Loza family and are now U.S. citizens. Their attorney, Michael Diaz of Diaz Reus & Targ in Miami, said the Loza family was coerced into executing the deed in the 1950s.
“They were assured of just compensation for all expropriated land. Instead, the Lozas were ‘compensated’ through imprisonment, torture and acts of terrorism perpetrated by their own government and its corrupt officials,” Diaz said.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul C. Huck was assigned to the case.
Diaz said Bolivia has never denied owing the Lozas compensation.
“Instead, they have refused to pay, sending the family on a decades-long, wild-goose chase that will now end in a U.S. court,” he said.
The lawsuit claiming unlawful expropriation, conversion, unjust enrichment and conspiracy is estimated to be worth $250 million.
