The commander of the Santa Cruz Police, Erick Olguín, considered that there is no irregularity or crime in the exhibition of vehicles without license plates at fairs like the one that takes place in Yapacaní.
“One thing is that they are circulating on public roads. If you are driving without a license plate, you are breaking a rule, but if you are stopped, you are not. it is breaking the norm”, affirmed the police chief when asked by journalists about the existence of stolen cars and ‘chutos’ in informal commerce.
In fact, the uniformed officer delimited responsibility in the control of undocumented and stolen motorists, after the uncovering of the television channel Meganoticias de Chile and the rescue operation of the Search Group NGO that arrived in Santa Cruz and evidenced the existence of motorcycles stolen in Calama.
The dissemination of the report based on a investigation by the NGO, led to the arrest of Colonel Raúl Cabezas Pantoja, former commander of the Uyuni border police who was sent to the Palmasola prison by order of the court and relieved of his position as deputy director of Diprove by Colonel Rolando Téllez, who was already summoned by the Prosecutor’s Office to testify as witness.
When the journalists asked Colonel Olguín why the Police did not intervene in the motorcycle fairs, many of them exhibited without a license plate, which are held in the Yapacaní square, in front of the police facilities, he insisted: “Those motorized vehicles are stopped, they are not circulating.”
The journalists also insisted and asked the officer to explain the difference that the Police make when carrying out rigorous controls in the Santa Cruz capital. Those vehicles, those of Yapacaní, are stopped, “for sale”, he said.
Regarding the motorized vehicles called ‘chutos’ for not having documents or an import policy, Olguín pointed out that the control of these irregularities is not the responsibility of the Police.
The commander referred to these complaints after the presentation of the cases clarified by the new Diprove personnel, who recovered stolen motorized vehicles that were delivered by the victims.
Following complaints from the NGO Chiena, the Minister of Government, Eduardo del Castillo, announced the removal of “100% of the troops” from Diprove Santa Cruz in the framework of an intervention in that unit. On Wednesday, Colonel Carlos Alcázar assumed responsibility for the institution and changed to 22 of the 130 troops.
The investigative director of the Search Group for Stolen Vehicles, Hugo Bustos, assured that after his investigations rcarried out, it has been possible to detect at least 400 stolen vehicles in Chile that appear in Bolivia in the hands of people and that are negotiated in the open air as in the Yapacaní fairs, in addition to other places such as “México Chico”, a town in the Cochabamba Tropics where the Police do not enter.
“It has to draw our attention how a country allows vehicles to enter Bolivia, not only stolen but undocumented,” questioned the police chief.
But the Bustos investigation implicated Colonel Téllez, who until this week was deputy director of Diprove. The aforementioned officer reported on the “rescue operation” that the NGO carried out together with the journalists to his superiors 40 days ago, but the scandal and the reaction of Minister del Castillo occurred four days ago.
Yesterday, Commander Olguín confirmed the existence of that report, issued on March 26. Of course, he stated that the report “was incomplete” and that is why there was no reaction from the Police. The Santa Cruz commander said that the report only refers to a relationship “of a simple telephone communication” between the Chilean team and Téllez. He assured that the letter “in no way refers to the robbery of the motorized, the circumstances and other details.” That is why, as he revealed, that report was sent to the Police Internal Investigations Directorate.
Téllez is being subjected to an internal process in the Directorate of Police Investigations of the Police, the DIDIPI, for considering that he committed “a serious offense”. He was also summoned to testify as a witness by the Prosecutor’s Office in the investigation of the theft of motorized vehicles from Chile.
That is why the national director of Diprove, Héctor Pereira, affirmed that he had no knowledge of the NGO’s operation or the Téllez report. “The legal form is the coordination that must exist between the two police institutions that were in charge of the vehicle theft investigation, these gentlemen have not communicated to the competent authority,” Pereira said on the No Lies program.
Meanwhile, the Police carry out searches in an attempt to capture Freddy Huallpa Cahuana, who appears in the images of the report offering a red truck for sale in Yapacaní. The subject is a discharged former police officer who, according to the report, claims or pretends to speak on the phone with a police chief who would be Colonel Rolando Téllez.
