Editor’s Note: Ray Rogers is a pioneering labor strategist & organizer, and founder of CorporateCampaign.org.
By Ray Rogers
Since 2004, as part of the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, I have attended Coca-Cola’s annual meetings of shareholders to confront The Coca-Cola Company’s chief executives and board members over the company's involvement in horrific human rights abuses and other criminal behavior.
These meetings often became confrontational and tense. I was violently attacked from behind while standing at the microphone raising issues of Coca-Cola’s complicity in deadly human rights abuses perpetrated against union leaders in Colombia. The assailants turned out to be Wilmington, Delaware police dressed in plain clothes moonlighting as Coca-Cola security.
Coke's top policymakers have proven to be serial liars devoid of any moral compass who profit bigtime while commiting well-documented crimes running the gamut from the use of illegal child labor by its sugar processors in the dangerous harvesting of sugar cane; its ugly history of systematic intimidation, kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders and family members in Colombia and Guatemala to thwart union organizing; horrific animal abuse at its Fairlife dairy products subsidiary, and actions and threats against competing entrepreneurs in Mexico.
Coca-Colonization
The Coca-Cola Company for decades has been king in Mexico. Mexico has the highest per capita consumption of Coca-Cola in the world and ranks #1 of any country in North America for the prevalence of diabetes in the 20 to 79 age group thanks to its employing high profile politicians to go against public health policies. Many describe Mexico as a "colony" of Coca-Cola because of the company's historical dominance in Mexican politics and influence over its courts. Coca-Cola Mexico's former president and CEO Vicente Fox served as Mexico's president from 2000 to 2006. Furthermore, for decades The Coca-Cola Company has hired Mexican public officials ranging from former presidents to secretaries of state to operate in their favor and against general public health.
When you consider its massive environmental pollution; its unconscionable aggressive marketing of sugary, chemical-laden sodas to children that fuel childhood obesity, dental caries, high blood pressure and diabetes epidemics; its terrible labor relations history and widespread crimes globally, you must wonder what keeps this company raking in huge profits, its executives out of prison and its brand flourishing. The answer is widespread financial shenanigans and influence over Mexico's judiciary, an army of expensive lawyers, tax evasion and its never-ending exploitation of workers, natural resources and the environment obscurred by endless propaganda emanating from its corporate headquarters’ $4 billion-a-year advertising that promotes Coke beverages as “happiness” in every bottle and can.
Coca-Cola’s Grand Larceny
Once the COVID-19 epidemic struck in 2020, Coke has only held virtual annual meetings. At each meeting since 2020, I submitted a question focusing on one or more issues described above. For the last couple of meetings, I spotlighted the egregious case of heroic Mexican entrepreneur Jose Antonio Del Valle Torres, who I’ve gotten to know over the years, involving the theft of trade secrets for a sugarless, all-natural ingredient brain-boosting healthy beverage named “GO GABA” that he created. It was estimated to be worth billions of dollars in future sales by senior investment bankers and Coca-Cola’s executives.
Jose Antonio had already established markets in Mexico and The Netherlands and won international acclaim from such companies as Google as well as from Mexican and French authorities for bringing this innovative new beverage into the market. Coca-Cola recognized the unique concept and revenue-producing potential of GO GABA and wanted the ‘know-how’ behind it.
After signing a legally binding agreement with Coke's Mexican subsidiary to further develop the GO GABA beverage innovation, Mr. Del Valle Torres’ beverage trade secrets were stolen through a series of nefarious activities. Coca-Cola fraudulently began marketing Fanta GABA in Japan in May 2018. In July 2018, Jose filed two criminal complaints against Coca-Cola for corporate fraud and industrial property theft. Mexico City’s Attorney General officially determined that Jose had already suffered losses totaling $345 million USD. Fanta GABA was almost instantly pulled from the market.
Circumstantial and irrefutable evidence gathered since the crime was discovered in 2018, pointed to high officials within the company, including Global Chief Marketing Officer Manual Arroyo and Selman Careaga the President of the Asia Pacific Business Unit, being involved in the fraud. Other senior executives of Coca-Cola, including Galya Frayman Molinas, former Senior Vice President of Strategy and Insights, have defiantly ignored subpoenas to answer questions from Mexico City’s prosecuting authorities. Throughout this now seven year old saga to bring Coca-Cola to justice, Mr. Del Valle Torres has been a victim of surveillance, harassment and acts of sabotage to cause him harm in what according to security experts could only be a corporate and/or state sponsored orchestrated criminal campaign to ultimately murder him. The Coca-Cola Company is known to have links to domestic and foreign security government agencies which in the past have cooperated and supported their criminal activity and intimidation of adversaries.
Self-Imposed Exile and Escaping Serious Injury or Death
Mr. Del Valle Torres’ situation has become so precarious that he has been forced to move his residence multiple times in order to stay alive as he lives in self-imposed exile from his home country. This has taken a gigantic toll on his life’s aspirations, family, health and well-being.
My question to Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey during Coke’s virtual annual meeting on April 30, 2025 was, "To prevent further erosion of Coca-Cola's reputation and that of top executives like Global Chief Marketing Officer Manual Arroyo and your former senior executive Galya Frayman Molinas, both implicated in this horrendous narrative, will The Coca-Cola Company open its files on the GO GABA criminal complaints and facilitate a truly independent investigation of the perils to Mr. Del Valle Torres which have been reported in the international media and national media in Mexico?"
Chairman Quincey, of course, never answers or even acknowledges my questions at these virtual annual meetings because The Coca-Cola Company and several of its top executives are as guilty as sin in perpetuating and trying to cover up this monumental crime. Coke's entire board of directors, and former board member Warren Buffett, who for many years has remained Coca-Cola's largest shareholder at 9.2%, remain mute on the GO GABA subject and never fess up to the colossal damage their company inflicts around the world.
Coca-Cola board members are richly compensated. Collectively they serve as company minions to rubber stamp the dictates of James Quincey, a crime veteran himself, linked to the tax evasion schemes that have cost the Mexican State billions of dollars in unpaid tax obligations. Compensation for each of the 11 members of Coca-Cola's board in 2024 ranged from $291,054 to $334,256. James Quincey's compensation at Coca-Cola from 2022 to 2024 totaled $75,567,711. His apparent accomplice in the GO GABA trade secrets theft, Manuel Arroyo over the same period raked in $27, 090,168. Years of in depth research shows that The Coca-Cola System has operated like a criminal syndicate with impunity for decades while it buys off political leaders and flouts the law around the world without any consequences just like the legendary organized crime family bosses did in past decades.
Recent Excerpts from Mexico's Poder Ciudadano Articles:
‘Coca-Cola Case: Harassment, Intimidation and Forged Documents’
"Despite the fact that Judges and Magistrates of Mexico City's Judicial Branch (‘FGJCMDX’) repeatedly requested, over several years, the reopening of the investigation files in relation to Mr. Del ValleTorres’ case, the objective of the ‘FGJCMDX’ conspiring with Coca-Cola is not to exhaust the lines of investigation by repeatedly and illegally closing the files. The ‘FGJCMDX’ and Coca-Cola are betting on the statutes of limitations to kick in to obtain impunity. False testimonies, omission of subpoenas, Coke executives fleeing Mexico to avoid testifying, and recently the presentation of a false document simulating the signature of Mr. Del Valle Torres are examples of the lengths to which Coca-Cola and co-conspirators within the ‘FGJCMDX’ are willing to go to obstruct the administration of justice...
‘Coca-Cola CEO James Quincey, A Modern-day Godfather’
"The Coca-Cola System today is headed by James R. Quincey, who operates in the style of the old 'Godfathers'. Under the approbation of this modern-day 'Godfather', The Coca-Cola Company hires limitless law firms all over the world despite not assigning to some of them any significant work, with the sole purpose of preventing them from representing opposing parties; strongly denies responsibility in a dispute with the U.S. Internal Revenue Service ('IRS') for tax fraud amounting to billions of dollars; and sponsors the world's largest summit against climate change while Coca-Cola is the largest polluter on the planet. These are just visible examples of the impunity and the network of influence peddling, which is oftentimes not obvious, that allows Coca-Cola to interfere without borders through the company's own corporate structure...
"In the Del Valle Torres/Coca-Cola case, Mexico City's Human Rights Commission, the Legislative Branch, and the intervention of former President Andres Manual Lopez Obrador's own Office have not been enough to counteract the immense power of 'The Godfather' in Mexico. Clearly though, the GO GABBA matter now worries the highest echelons of Coca-Cola due to the prolonged indictment of Manuel Arroyo and Selman Careaga, its two most senior marketeers worldwide.The case of Mr. Del Valle Torres, who has suffered sophisticated attempts to harm him including murder and kidnapping, is an example of the tangible interference of Coca-Cola operating above the rule of law to influence Mexican Institutions."
Committed to Win Justice
Jose Antonio Del Valle Torres, a strong-willed working class entrepreneur, with his life in peril, is determined to continue his fight against Coca-Cola’s crimes and secure justice. The Campaign to Stop KillerCoke/Corporate Campaign is committed to wholeheartedly support him. Readers can email Coca-Cola's board of directors to demand justice: asktheboard@coca-cola.com (James Quincey, Chairman & CEO).
For more nformation exposing Coca-Cola and child labor see the New York Times story "The Brutality of Sugar".
For more information documenting Coca-Cola/Fairlife's animal abuse see Agriculture Dive's story "Coca-Cola’s Fairlife still sourcing milk from abusive farms, animal rights group claims".
For more information on Coca-Cola's history of violence against workers in Latin America, click here.
