The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, used millions of dollars from his country’s intelligence budget to hire a foreign company to remove a documentary and other information critical of him or his wife from the internet, leaked documents show.

The records, seen by BuzzFeed News, show that at least one contract, for just under $4.7 million, was signed with a Mexican company that then successfully removed material from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and Dailymotion.

Videos removed by the company, which filed weekly reports on successful deletions, included a critical documentary by filmmaker Santiago Villa, an electoral broadcast from a rival accusing Correa of behaving like a dictator, a video from a former aide to Correa’s wife alleging persecution, and a report of a jailbreak from Ecuador’s highest-security prison.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jamesball/ecuadors-president-used-millions-of-dollars-of-public-funds