The Police and the Second Specialized Corporate Supraprovincial Prosecutor’s Office Against Organized Crime raided houses and intervened more than 20 people in Piura and Lima, who would be alleged members of the criminal organization “Los Gánster de las Finanzas”, which would include the current mayor of the Provincial Municipality of Morropón-Chulucanas, Richard Baca Palacios. The authority, despite having an arrest warrant for 15 days, fled from justice.
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According to file No. 00441-2023-4-5001-JR-PE-08 of the Eighth National Preparatory Investigation Court to which Mail had access, there are 46 people investigated, of whom preliminary detention for 15 days was requested for 23 of them, and there would be around 20,709 aggrieved people.
They are being investigated for the alleged crime of organized crime, financing through fraudulent information, fraud in the administration of a legal entity, computer fraud, falsification of documents and distorted audit reports, to the detriment of the AELUCOOP Savings and Credit Cooperative and the State.
According to the tax investigation, in which Baca Palacios is found, the alleged criminal organization has caused economic damageupdated as of April 22, 2024, from S/ 410 622 273.59 and US$ 79 663 364.41 from the coffers of AELUCOOP, a criminal act that has caused serious economic damage to more than twenty thousand members, who entrusted their savings to the aforementioned financial entity and who in the end were defrauded.
According to investigations, between 2009 and 2021, managers, workers and partners of AELUCOOP used real estate companies as a front to access fraudulent loans that benefited only the members of the organization.
In Piura, the police and prosecutor’s intervention was carried out from the early hours of yesterday morning, in the home of the provincial mayor of Morropón, Richard Baca Palacios, who was not located.
Prosecutor Irene Mercado Zavala, who directed the operation, stated that the municipal authority was not arrested, but documents that would be related to this alleged criminal organization and S/ 5000 were seized.
The prosecutor declared that Mayor Richard Baca Palacios was previously an advisor to AELUCOOP and would have founded the Baca group, from where he allegedly appropriated funds from savers.
The mayor is accused of obtaining loans valued at nine million dollars and presenting land that was not his property as collateral.
“He was the owner of the Baca group, but he was previously legal advisor of this cooperative, he resigned from the advice and created the Baca group and through this group he has made loans and has not returned them. He has fled,” said prosecutor Irene Mercado. Pedro Eduardo Miyasato Arakaki and Roger Miguel Zeballos Hatakeda were also arrested in Lima, the latter being the alleged leader of the criminal network, who held the position of manager of the cooperative.
At the close of this edition, operations were continuing to locate mayor Richard Baca.
