Remigio Ángel González González

In Latin America, he is known as “el Fantasma” (the Ghost), since his name is difficult to track within the large media network that he manages, which includes 45 TV channels, 68 radio stations and 65 movie theaters from Mexico to Argentina. González registered these companies under the name of family members and representatives to bypass each country’s antitrust regulations. However, he has always caught the public eye, his persona and his career being the inspiration for hundreds of journalistic reports.

Remigio was born in a middle-class family from Higueras, Mexico. He is the eldest of over ten children. He and some of his siblings moved to Guatemala when he was still a teenager. In Guatemala, he cemented the foundations of his empire. First, he created a business that sold Japanese electrical appliances and became friends with some of the region’s politicians and media businessmen, such as Luis Rabbé Tejada, former Minister of Communications and former President of the Congress of Guatemala. Rabbé’s sister was González’s first wife. She died in a car accident during their honeymoon. Later, Rabbé married to Rosaura Guadalupe González, one of the sisters of the media mogul.

Widow in first wedlock, Remigio moved to Perú to work in advertising and in the purchase and distribution of TV content. In particular, he marketed products of TV network Panamericana Televisión, due to his friendship with the network’s founder, Genaro Delgado Parker.

In 1980 González returned to Guatemala, where he met his current wife, Alba Elvira Lorenzana Cardona, mother of his daughters (Morelia Eréndira y Jani Tzik Tzik). González named his group and most of its products after her. Lorenzana is the majority shareholder of Albavisión’s media in Guatemala. Between 2008 and 2011, she was involved in a case of electoral fraud, accused of illegally financing former President Otto Pérez Molina’s candidacy. He is currently in prison. In 2018 Interpol issued Alba’s international arrest warrant based on a corruption case in the Guatemalan Congress. In the same case, former legislator Rabbé was arrested in the Mexican province where González had been born. He is awaiting extradition.

In 2007 Remigio grew his network into Argentina by purchasing Canal 9 and several radio stations. As Argentina’s legislation does not allow any foreigner to own more than 30% of an Argentinian media, González’s companies in the country are registered under the name of Carlos Eduardo Loréfice Lynch, a young attorney with no previous experience in the media industry. In 2018 strong rumors circulated about Albavisión leaving the media it controls in Argentina. Even though González’s name no longer appears in the companies’ board of directors, it has not been confirmed whether he has sold his stock in those companies.

Of American nationality, Remigio lives in Key West, Miami, where his business group is also legally domiciled.