"Malicious procrastination" in the Banco Unión case: Prosecutor's Office asks to return to zero pages

Carlos Quisbert / La Paz

Three years and seven months after the embezzlement at the Banco Unión agency in the municipality of Desaguadero, prosecutor Ingrid Feraudi presented a new accusation in November of this year for a crime that had already been rejected in 2019. With this action, the official stopped the start of the trial against seven defendants that should have started in January 2020.

“We do not know if this comes from the Banco Unión, the Prosecutor’s Office or the judicial system or from all three, but what we are sure of is that there is a malicious delay, delay of justice in order to have an innocent person detained, against the one they know they have no evidence, ”lamented a relative of the main defendant in the alleged embezzlement, Julio César Rivera.

“As a family, we ask, we beg, lawyers to act like good human beings. Reflect and consider that they are not memorials or cold objects. The delay of justice that they generate affects the life of an innocent man and several families who live in anguish because this martyrdom does not end, ”said the same source.

Frightened by the mistreatment of officials and fearful that the processes will be further aggravated against their loved ones, they request that their identity be reserved, but in support of their complaint before this medium they presented the documents by means of which those involved intend to demonstrate his innocence before the authorities.

“They give us no other way than to resort to public denunciation, the people who accuse him have paralyzed the life of Julio César (Rivera) in jail since May 2018, when the prosecutor (Omar Mejillones) exposed him to the whole of society as a criminal, but with no evidence other than the report that only blames cashiers and lower-ranking personnel, but not the managers who should have controlled whether or not there was an embezzlement, ”the relatives reported in an interview with Página Siete.

“Julio César has no parents, his three children live with his wife and grandmother, and in this time that they have him imprisoned, his father-in-law and one of the accused who was detained in Santa Cruz died. Do the lawyers of the Banco Unión, the prosecutors and the judges not care about the lives of other people? “, Questioned one of the relatives.

Indeed, in addition to Rivera’s family member, the former credit card manager of Banco Unión Róger Medina died in Santa Cruz, where he was under house arrest for the first case of embezzlement committed by Juan Pari. According to resolution 46/2021 dated October 25, 2021, the criminal action against Medina was declared extinct, a document that was worth nothing after years before being unemployed and he was imprisoned in the Palmasola prison.

Trial stage

According to the documents, the prosecutor Feraudi presented the imputation for alleged legitimation of illicit profits against Rivera and his wife (eighth implicated), on November 4 of this year, before the First Anticorruption Sentencing Court, where the case had been based since 29 January 2020. That is, the Public Ministry intends to return to the preparatory stage one year and 10 months after the investigation was closed and that his colleague (former prosecutor) Germán Rea issued a rejection resolution in favor of both people.

Rivera was arrested and sent to jail in May 2018, charged with financial crimes for the alleged embezzlement of 1.6 million Bolivians. That figure, according to a “special audit report IN / AIN-OP / 17/2018”, was stolen five times, from 2015 to 2017, when he left the position of chief of operations.

In the document, the prosecutor affirmed that in his attempt to launder the stolen money Rivera made 18 suspicious bank deposits totaling 482,342 Bolivians from December 19, 2014 to August 17, 2017. In addition, that his wife made purchases of securities of the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) with money that would not be in line with their economic income, taking into account that both were employees of the Banco Unión (their partner had stopped working years before).

On the other hand, the discharge documents of Rivera and his partner cite the same financial report from Banco Unión in which it is stated that the alleged embezzlement occurred since 2015, which is why it is ruled out that part of the “suspicious deposits” are money stolen from the financial institution.

“All the movement of money they have in their accounts is demonstrable and comes from their savings from the years of work,” says one of Rivera’s relatives and his partner. The evidence cited by the prosecutor Feraudi does not include an independent audit or a police report on the bank’s audit analysis, and there are no recent investigative acts that have led to the new indictment being issued.

According to the documents, the imputation for legitimation of earnings was rejected by the court in charge of the beginning of the trial, but after a “clarification” the file was sent back to the court of origin, Anticorruption room, and the trial was paralyzed.

Another observation is that the accusation that paralyzed the start of the trial is only for Rivera and his wife, but does not mention what happens to the other defendants. Rivera is the only detainee in this process.

Mikaela Salinas, a lawyer for another of the defendants, confirmed that they were not notified with the new accusation, but maintained that since it does not affect his client, the defense is awaiting what the authorities resolve.

Página Siete contacted the attorney for Banco Unión, Massiel Riveros, who indicated that she was not authorized to give statements and without specifying to whom the query should be directed, requested that a note be sent to the bank. In the case of the Prosecutor’s Office, an interview was also requested with the person assigned to the case, Feraudi, but in two weeks there was no response.

Letter of complaint before the Council of the Magistracy.
Photo: Page Seven

Irregularities

Evidence Among the various irregularities reported in this case is the loss of five boxes of documentary evidence at the Prosecutor’s Office, which happened while the case was in charge of former prosecutor Germán Rea.
Extortion Another complaint is about the extortion of the lawyer Marwel Flores made on behalf of the prosecutor Germán Rea and Judge Melina Lima, on the request for 19,000 dollars for the authorities to favor the only detainee in the case, Julio Rivera, with house arrest. The scandal was never explained by the then departmental prosecutor Marco Antonio Cossío. The representatives of Banco Unión did not comment on either of the two complaints.