![Former President Salvador Sanchez Ceren is wanted on charges related to corruption and money laundering [File: AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/000_1D02EN.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
Investigators say they will seek international help to locate and detain the former president and other officials.
El Salvador
![El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele speaks at a news conference in San Salvador, El Salvador, February 28, 2021 [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/2021-02-28T222527Z_1112580303_RC2Y1M9WYEAZ_RTRMADP_3_EL-SALVADOR-ELECTION.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
‘The coolest president in the world’ is transforming El Salvador into a Bitcoin wonderland. What can possibly go wrong?
El Salvador does not have its own currency, making financing growth difficult as debts soar to 90 percent of GDP.
![Anti-riot police stand inside the National Republican Alliance (ARENA) party headquarters during a raid executed by the National Civil Police and Attorney General's Office in capital, San Salvador, on Friday [Jose Cabezas/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/2021-07-03T014835Z_1025412702_RC2MCO9DAVZO_RTRMADP_3_EL-SALVADOR-CORRUPTION.jpg?resize=570%2C380)
Conservative opposition ARENA party accused of embezzling funds from a donation from Taiwan between 2003 and 2004.
![El Salvador's law making Bitcoin legal tender enters into force on September 7 [File: Bloomberg]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/372762952.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
President Nayib Bukele offered $30 worth of Bitcoin to any citizen who signs up for a digital wallet.
![Pablo Toro, Venezuelan delivery worker (left) who emigrated to Colombia in 2019, uses an app called Valiu to receive Colombian pesos from working on Bogota's streets and deposit the corresponding bolivars into a Venezuelan bank account [File: Luisa Gonzalez/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/pablo.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Pablo Toro, a Venezuelan food delivery driver in Colombia, uses digital tokens every time he sends money to his family.
![Earlier this month, El Salvador became the world's first nation to adopt Bitcoin as legal tender, with President Nayib Bukele touting the cryptocurrency’s potential as a remittance currency for Salvadorans who are overseas and sending money home [File: Jose Cabezas/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/bitcoinnnn.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
El Salvador’s finance minister said that he had clarified with IMF that the country had no plans to abandon the dollar.
![Child labour is on the rise for the first time in nearly two decades, and the coronavirus crisis threatens to upend progress made to get kids into school, the United Nations warned this week [File: Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/child.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
THE WEEK IN NUMBERS
Bitcoin Beach, child labour, Oman’s youth and an $18.9M coin
We gather the numbers to know from the week’s biggest economic news stories so you can impress your friends.
![The small Salvadoran beach town of El Zonte has already made cryptocurrency part of daily life, and now the rest of the country will join the experiment thanks to a new law making Bitcoin legal tender [File: Salvador Melendez/AP Photo]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/AP21161064995104.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
El Salvador uses the dollar as its currency and its monetary policy is wedded to the US even as relations falter.
![The cryptocurrency market grew to more than $2.5tn in mid-May 2020, according to the CoinMarketCap page [File:Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-07T111653Z_1711476615_RC2KVN9NYXOG_RTRMADP_3_CRYPTO-CURRENCIES.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
A majority of 62 out of 84 lawmakers approved the bill, which President Bukele proposed last week.
![Sara Rogel was one of dozens of Salvadoran women imprisoned for abortion-related crimes in the country, which banned abortion in all circumstances in 1998 [Marvin Recinos/AFP]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/000_9BN6XT.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Sara Rogel had been sentenced to a 30-year jail term for an abortion-related crime in El Salvador.
El Salvador announces plans to make Bitcoin legal tender, but other countries are concerned about cryptocurrencies.
![President Bukele will soon propose a bill to formally accept cryptocurrency as legal money [File: Dado Ruvic/Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-05-20T154747Z_1174976389_RC2RJN9KXJ40_RTRMADP_3_CRYPTO-CURRENCY-e1622969242341.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
The move, if approved, would make El Salvador the first country to formally accept cryptocurrency as legal money.
![US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Costa Rica's President Carlos Alvarado Quesada elbow bump each other after a news conference in San Jose, Costa Rica [Evelyn Hockstein/Pool via Reuters]](/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-06-01T225811Z_1655939199_RC2YRN9TLXYM_RTRMADP_3_USA-IMMIGRATION-CENTAM.jpg?resize=270%2C180)
Secretary of State Antony Blinken wraps trip to Costa Rica, while VP Kamala Harris gears for a visit to Central America.