Archive for the ‘Corruption’ Category
Friday, February 8th, 2008
The inspector general of the National Police is removing 120 police officers from the Apurímac and Ene river valleys, VRAE, where about 30 percent of Peru’s coca leaf, the raw material used to make cocaine, is harvested.
Sixty of the officers are suspected of drug trafficking while another 27 are accused of corruption, daily La Republic quoted Inspector General Luis Henríquez Palacios saying. The other 33 officers are being removed because they were stationed in the VRAE for five to eight years, while regulations permit cycles of no more than three years in the area.
Henríquez told La República the 60 officers are suspected of using police weapons during their days off to seize cocaine from drug traffickers and resell it to competing cartels. The officers have reportedly been transferred to other posts pending an investigation. (more…)
Posted in Coca, Cocaine, Corruption | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 6th, 2008
Attorney General Adelaida Bolívar and three other prosecutors will be questioned by the National Magistrates Council, CNM, over their handling of two drug trafficking investigations, daily El Comercio reported. The CNM’s disciplinary commission, led by Francisco Delgado, will later rule on opening disciplinary procedures against Bolívar and prosecutors Luis Muñoz, from Loreto Department, José Luis Castillo, from Cajamarca Department, and María Milian, from Trujillo, capital of La Libertad Department. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Saturday, January 26th, 2008
A second police chief in Peru’s southern Ayacucho Department has been arrested for drug trafficking in less than two weeks. Captain Carlos Izaguirre, 46, from the small town of Quinua, in Huamanga province, was arrested Jan.24 with officer Ernesto Ramos, 41, for allegedly reselling cocaine that had been confiscated in their jurisdiction, according to daily La República.
The men were reportedly arrested in the city of Huamanga, capital of Ayacucho Department and 35 km from their Quinua jurisdiction, after police found traces of cocaine in their vehicle.
A police search of Ramos’s home also turned up $3,400, a fortune considering Peru’s police reportedly earn on average 800 soles, or less than $300, a month. The daily reported that examinations of the bills also found traces of cocaine. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Thursday, January 24th, 2008
The former Agriculture Minister during the administration of jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori received a seven year prison sentence Wednesday for fabricating signatures that helped Fujimori get reelected in 2000. Absalón Vásquez was found guilty of fabricating the signatures for the Vamos Vecino party ahead of Peru’s 2000 presidential elections, Agencia Andina reported.
Vamos Vecino was part of the Peru 2000 alliance, the political party Fujimori formed in order to support his 2000 reelection. According to Agencia Andina, Vásquez was found guilty of crimes against public confidence and unlawful association with the intent of committing a crime.
Along with Vásquez, Fujimori’s former presidential adviser and intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was sentenced to eight years in prison for bribing officials to carry out the forgeries.
Vamos Vecino’s former director, Migdonio Bellota, and current lawmaker Rolando Reátegui were also found guilty of supporting the forgeries. Bellota was sentenced to six years in prison while Reátegui received a four year sentence, which amounts to a slap on the wrist. According to Peru’s penal code, any sentence of four years or less is automatically suspended.
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice, Politics | No Comments »
Thursday, January 17th, 2008
Six months after the magnitude-8 earthquake hit southern Peru, the comptroller-general’s office will begin a probe of Ica’s regional government for alleged irregularities in reconstruction contracts, says lawmaker Freddy Cerna Guzmán.
Guzmán, a member of the Union for Peru party and a representive of the Ica congressional district, told Ideele Radio that preliminary investigations show contracts to clean the debris from the Aug. 15 earthquake were awarded to companies lacking the capacity to complete the job. He added that the companies were not entitled to receive State contracts.
“There has been over charging for machines, the Comptroller has also found poor use of public funds for the emergency on the part of Ica’s regional presidency,” says Guzmán. According to Guzmán, 20 of the contracts cost the government 15 million soles, or about $5 million, representing more than 80 percent of the emergency funds.
“I’ve presented documents to the Comptroller where it shows the irregularities in the case of machinery and over charging during the emergency,” Guzmán said.
Accusations of government mismanagement and profiteering have tarnished the reconstruction effort. “At times when people need resolute and transparent help, there are irregularities like these.”
Posted in Corruption, Earthquakes, Natural Disasters | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 1st, 2008
Peru children are increasingly used by organized crime networks for drug trafficking, says a Lima-based child’s rights organization. The coordinator of Action for Children, María Pía Hermosa, told daily El Comercio that efforts by State authorities to eradicate child exploitation have largely failed.
State authorities “have told me about the frustration that exists among officials in the police and in Public Ministry” said Pía. “State authorities are trying to make an effort, but so far it’s been insufficient.”
On Dec. 22, police officers arrested Evelyn Changra Lazo with her 17-year-old daughter and 15-year-old son in Lima’s Jorge Chavez International Airport. Changra and her children were preparing for a flight to Argentina when officers found more than three kilograms of cocaine capsules in their stomachs.
A week later, police arrested Betty María Quispe Janampa in Lima’s San Juan de Lurigancho district. Quispe had allegedly worked as a drug mule with her 18-year-old and 11-year-old children in July 2007. Police say the two women were part of the same organization that used children for drug trafficking to Argentina. (more…)
Posted in Cocaine, Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
The former commander general of Peru’s Air Force, Eslevan Bello, and the former head of Peru’s intelligence service, Humberto Rozas Bonicelli, were found guilty today of helping jailed ex-presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos escape to Panama amid a bribery scandal in 2000. According to daily La República, the Third Anticorruption Court sentenced Bello and Rozas to six years in prison. Federal prosecutors had requested an eight-year prison sentence and a fine of 300,000 soles, or about $100,000.
Montesinos fled to Panama after a videotape was released of him bribing an opposition congressman in September 2000. He was later arrested in Venezuela and extradited to Peru in 2001, where he faced charges ranging from drug-trafficking to murder. Montesinos is currently imprisoned at the Callao maximum-security naval base.
The videotape was the first of the infamous ‘vladi-videos’ to be broadcast. They revealed a web of corruption that implicated politicians, businessmen and media owners and led to jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori’s resignation.
However numerous videotapes allegedly disappeared when Fujimori, 69, sent military officers posing as prosecutors with a fake search warrant to seize videos from Montesinos apartment. On Dec. 11, 2007 Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison for abusing his authority.
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Monday, December 10th, 2007
Jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori flailed his arms and his voice cracked with indignation Monday as he declared his innocence during the first day of trial on charges he sanctioned a paramilitary death squad to gun down suspected guerrilla sympathizers. Presiding Tribunal Judge Cesar San Martin called Fujimori to order and instructed him to simply plead guilty or not guilty.
Fujimori, 69, is charged with authorizing the Colina group death squad to kill nine students and a professor in 1992 at La Cantuta University, and 15 people, including an eight-year-old boy, in a tenement in Lima’s Barrios Altos district in 1991.
If convicted, he faces up to 30 years in prison and a fine totaling some $33 million.”I reject the charges totally. I am innocent,” Fujimori shouted.During a court recess, Fujimori suffered a bout of high blood pressure and the proceedings were suspended until Wednesday morning.
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice, Law, Politics | No Comments »
Friday, December 7th, 2007
At least five armed men ambushed the car of organized crime prosecutor Mateo Castañeda this morning, riddling his vehicle with bullets and killing one security guard. 
According to Radio Programas radio the shooting occurred while Castañeda was in a friend’s house in Lima’s San Borja district. His security guard, police officer Carlos Narciso Imata Concha, was shot three times while he waited in the car. He was later pronounced dead at a San Borja Clinic.
Castañeda’s portfolio includes high profile terrorism, drug trafficking and corruption cases in Peru. He oversaw the investigation of irregularities in the 1996 acquisition of Peru’s presidential airplane.
Castañeda is currently prosecuting former presidential advisor and intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos on drug trafficking charges. During trial proceedings yesterday, Castañeda requested Montesinos serve a 30 year sentence for his alleged ties to Colombia’s former cocaine kingpin, Pablo Escobar. (more…)
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice | No Comments »
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Peru’s former intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos says he was just following orders he orchestrated jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori’s fraud-riddled third term election victory in 2000.
Montesinos on Wednesday testified that Fujimori told him to shelve an investigation of allegations that election officials oversaw the systematic forgery of more than 1 million signatures to register his candidacy.
“He called me to his office in the National Intelligence Service for a briefing,” Montesinos said during questioning by the prosecution. “He opened a file and took out an affidavit and said ‘This is the affidavit that the Interior Minister delivered to me. Keep it as a precedent and shelve it here.’”
For 10 years, Montesinos was Fujimori’s shadowy, behind-the-scenes power broker. They forged a government widely viewed as a democratically elected dictatorship that resorted to surveillance, intimidation and wholesale bribery to retain its hold on power. (more…)
Posted in Corruption, Criminal Justice, Politics | No Comments »
