A new case of corruption looms over the Executive of Peru, this time with President Pedro Castillo and the family of his wife and first lady, Lilia Paredes Navarro as the protagonists.
(Also read: Peru: Prosecutor announces sixth investigation against President Pedro Castillo)
This weekend the provision that formalizes the preparatory investigation by criminal organization against Paredes and his brothers, Yenifer, David and Walter was made publicwhich details the role that each member of the family played in the alleged network that arranged public works in municipalities through the Housing sector.
The coordination of the network began at the beginning of the government, according to the confession of businessman Hugo Espino, included in the 170-page document of the Special Team of Prosecutors against the Corruption of Power, to which Trade had access.
(You may be interested: The institutional crisis that has Peru on the ropes)
The provision states that, due to the steps taken, “the existence and permanence of the criminal organization” has been identifiedwhich, “with the active participation of high-ranking state officials, would have constituted, directed, promoted, controlled, supervised, administered and coordinated a structure” that would involve the president, his wife and siblings, as well as José Medina, mayor of Anguía , district of Chota (Cajamarca), where Castillo is from.
In the organization, in which the brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino Lucana participated as figureheads, it would have been agreed to “obtain various public tenders in favor of municipalities” with the participation of Minister Geiner Alvarado (investigated by the Office of the Prosecutor of the Nation) when he was in the Ministry of Housing.
They managed to obtain money as a result of their illicit acts, taking advantage of the power they hold by having direct links with the president.
The group would have benefited from more than six million soles, that is, more than 1.5 million dollarsin public works in the municipalities of Anguía, Chadín, Cajatambo and Chachapoyas.
“Everyone, from their roles and functions, contributed to the criminal project […]. Through the modality of ‘fraudulent public tenders’ […]They were able to obtain the contract for various public execution projects, managing to obtain money as a result of their illicit acts, taking advantage of the power they hold by having a direct link with the president, who would have facilitated the realization of the criminal plan, ”indicates the document. Therefore, for the prosecution, Peru is facing a “criminal network in power.”
First contact
The tax provision describes the actions and accusations related to the members of the so-called “criminal network in power”, based on inquiries and statements from collaborators, including Hugo Espino’s confession on August 14.
Espino is one of the people who was preliminarily detained for 10 days on August 9, as part of the investigation of the case (the others were his sister Anggi, Mayor Medina and Yenifer Paredes). His companies, JJC Espino and Destcon, were used in the alleged criminal network. After the arrest, he and his sister confessed.
According to Espino’s statement, since August 8, 2021, eleven days after Castillo assumed the presidency, he was already coordinating the network with Lilia and Yenifer Paredes. On that date he met with them at the Government Palace.
Then, Yenifer Paredes, who faces a request for 36 months of preventive detentionasked her to buy a cell phone chip for the first lady to use for her coordination, since she feared “being intercepted.”
According to the businessman, the first lady would “coordinate” with the president so that the financing of a work in Chadín, as well as in other municipalities, is given.
One of these would be the emergency decree 102-2021, signed on October 29 of last yearin which Castillo approved millionaire transfers for sanitation contracts, from which his family circle, presumably, obtained a great economic benefit.
Family in sight
According to the prosecution, Yenifer Paredes fulfilled the role of ‘lobbyist’, since she was in charge of “searching for and attracting mayors from the different localities of the country to offer them the viability and speed for the financing of their public works projects.”
In addition to this investigation, the first lady’s younger sister is also being investigated for alleged money laundering, after the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Superintendence of Banking and Insurance indicated that Paredes made 28 cash deposits for a total of more than 23,000 dollars between October 2021 and June 2022.
The report warns that during the execution of Paredes’ cash deposits “no economic activity was identified that would have allowed him to obtain the funds described above.”
The other brothers of the first lady, Walter and David Paredes, were also involved with the alleged figureheads.
The first deposited more than 5,000 dollars in Anggi Espino’s account, possibly part of an agreement between Espino and Rubdel Oblitas Paredes, President Castillo’s nephew, to finance a project for a project at the Ministry of Transportation. The second deposited more than 18,000 dollars in the account of the figurehead.
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