Justice orders the arrest of Peru’s president’s sister-in-law over corruption case

the justice of Peru ordered the preventive detention for ten days of the country’s president’s sister-in-law, Pedro Castillo, Yenifer Paredes, who is being investigated for influence peddling for allegedly offering a sanitation work in Cajamarca, the president’s home region. The police and the special team of prosecutors against the corruption went to the Government Palace, in the historic center of Lima, capital of Peru, around 17:00 (local time; 19:00 in Brasília) last Tuesday, the 9th, apparently to arrest Paredes, who, so far, has not been detained. The detention measure, according to the judicial resolution released by the local press, was approved last Friday and is being carried out in several operations led by prosecutor Hans Aguirre, which resulted in the capture of two businessmen and a mayor of Cajamarca, all implicated in an alleged criminal network entrenched in the government, of which Castillo would be the leader.

The team of prosecutors and members of the Police’s Division of Investigation of High Complexity Crimes (Diviac) spent more than three hours at the presidential residence to execute the arrest warrant against Paredes, but still have not found her. The prosecutor’s investigation against Castillo’s sister-in-law was revealed after a report by “América Televisión”, which released a video in which the young woman spoke to residents of a community in the Chota district of Cajamarca, which needed to carry out a population census to build a sanitation work, despite not occupying any position in the Executive. In the images, Paredes appears with Hugo Espino, who was arrested this afternoon and is the legal representative of the company JJM Espino Ingeniería & Construcción SAC, which in September 2021 won a bid for more than 3.8 million soles (almost US$ 1 million). In this case, Paredes and the first lady went to the Public Ministry to give evidence in July.

Castillo’s sister-in-law was also recently summoned by the Congressional Oversight Commission, where she denied having had any influence on the contracts Espino won with the government, although she acknowledged that she worked for her company. She explained that she had known the businessman since 2019 and that she started working for him in August 2021, which is why Espino “habitually” visited the Government Palace. The first lady’s sister specified that the contract she had with Espino’s company was “verbal” and assured that in the images transmitted by the press she was carrying out her work for the company, which involved “taking a census of the population, collecting data statistics to see if it was feasible to carry out a project”.

Shortly before the beginning of the proceedings at the Government Palace, the local press reported the arrest of Espino, his sister Anggi Espino and the mayor of Anguía, in Chota, José Medina Guerrero. Medina Guerrero, who is close to President Pedro Castillo, was appointed by Bruno Pacheco, who was Castillo’s presidential secretary, as one of the operators of an alleged criminal network integrated into the Executive and led by the president, according to the prosecutor’s hypothesis. According to the court decision that authorized these four arrests, Castillo would be the “head” of this alleged corrupt organization, which would have Medina and the current Transport Minister, Geiner Alvarado, as “leaders”. The “coordinators”, according to this version, are the first lady and the president’s family, while the Espino brothers and Castillo’s sister-in-law are considered “iron figures”. Castillo has been in the presidency of Peru for just over a year.

*With information from EFE