Panamanian authorities raided the offices of the former Canal ports operator following a Supreme Court ruling that the company's concession — originally granted in 1997 and extended in 2021 — was unconstitutional because it handed excessive privileges to a private entity without adequate public oversight. The Maritime Authority had already seized operational control of the Balboa and Cristóbal ports before investigators arrived with search warrants, making the raid feel less like a surprise and more like a final act of administrative tidying.

The constitutional court found that both the original contract and its subsequent addendum caused measurable harm to the public interest, which is a formal legal way of saying someone got a very good deal for a very long time at everyone else's expense. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had visited Panama in January 2026 and expressed satisfaction with efforts to reduce foreign influence over strategically significant infrastructure — a geopolitical subplot that gave the corruption probe the additional flavor of great-power competition dressed in prosecutorial clothing.