In a mega-operation, where the properties of 22 people under investigation were raided, the Special Team of Prosecutors for the Fight against Power preliminarily detained, for 10 days, Nicanor Boluarte, older brother of the president of Peru, Dina Boluarte, and to her lawyer, Mateo Castañeda. They are charged with criminal organization and influence peddling in the appointment of sub-prefects to finance a criminal network and in turn achieve the collection of signatures for the registration of a political party. The prefects and sub-prefects are representatives of the Executive Branch in the different regions of the country. They are considered administrative positions of trust and are appointed by the Minister of the Interior and the Executive.
On repeated occasions, Dina Boluarte has defended the honorability of her relative, whom she has been tracking for a year. Various journalistic investigations have reported that Nicanor Boluarte was immersed in the hiring of people close to him and his sister, as well as the allocation of a budget of 20 million soles (5.4 million dollars) to a municipality in Cajamarca after holding a meeting with the mayor. In short, he is accused of coordinating meetings between the president and various political and economic actors.
In addition, he is involved in the possible fraud of Ciudadanos por el Perú, a political party linked to the Boluarte and registered a few months ago, of which the electoral authority discovered that of the 32,000 signatures to obtain registration, at least 500 had been falsified. “Stop defaming my brother, who is not participating in absolutely anything, in any party organization,” the president said last January.
This afternoon, after seven hours of proceedings, Nicanor Boluarte was transferred to the Lima Prefecture. He was wearing a mask and a cap. As for Mateo Castañeda, the president’s lawyer, he is accused of having tried to bribe police colonels Walter Lozano and Harvey Colchado, promising them promotions and continuity in office in exchange for influencing in favor of Nicanor Boluarte in the elections. investigations followed by the Special Team against corruption of power.
When both refused, there were reprisals. In mid-April, Harvey Colchado, who was in charge of the High Complexity Crimes Division, was suspended for having celebrated his birthday with a cake that supposedly staged the moment of the raid on the president’s house during Holy Week. . But not only that. This Thursday, on the eve of Nicanor Boluarte’s arrest, the Ministry of the Interior dismantled the Special Police Team that assisted the prosecutors of the Special Team of Prosecutors to Fight Power. The National Prosecutor, Juan Carlos Villena, has declared that he will demand the immediate replacement of this command.
This Friday, during a seminar in Lima, President Boluarte reappeared after allegations that she was absent from the Government for two weeks in mid-2023 to undergo cosmetic surgeries. She did not respond about it, but she did respond to the arrest of her brother Nicanor, although without naming him directly. “We are not going to be distracted by minor issues. We believe in the justice of the country, we believe in the reasonableness of those who administer the country’s justice, and along these lines this Government will continue to bet on democracy, on respecting our Constitution, on making our country greater,” she said.
The arrest order issued by Judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho, of the First National Preparatory Investigation Court, also covers six others involved, in addition to lawyer Mateo Castañeda. In addition, the secret removal of telecommunications was judicially authorized in order to view and extract information from the mobile phones, tablets, computers, laptops, USB flash drives and external hard drives of the 22 people involved in total.
“I deny absolutely everything, I am innocent,” was the only statement given by Nicanor Boluarte, in the middle of a swarm of journalists. In the last month and a half, the president has faced a host of scandals: an alleged illicit enrichment as a result of not having declared a collection of high-end watches and jewelry, having gone away without informing Congress to undergo cosmetic operations and, in case little, having tried to censor the monetary poverty report that reveals that in Peru there are almost 10 million people who cannot cover their basic needs.
Follow all the information from El PAÍS América in Facebook and xor in our weekly newsletter.
#Dina #Boluartes #brother #lawyer #arrested #alleged #influence #peddling