The president Dina Boluarte denied that the fugitive Vladimir Cerrón, his former party leader, have used his car known as “the chest”for his armor, and attacked the press for reporting on the suspicious episode in which his vehicle was detected near the place where the leader of Peru Libre and former regional governor of Junín convicted of corruption was, according to police information.
“A doll without feet, arms or head is being made again, but it is a doll nonetheless. And they are saying that El cofre de la presidenta took the fugitive Vladimir Cerrón out of Ica. Sinister minds, they seem like Chucky with his girlfriend, Chucky’s girlfriend. They are making up these horror stories,” he said during his speech at a school in the Lima district of Ate, which he had gone to inaugurate.
“But I say to Peru: The presidential safe, the vehicles assigned to the use of the President of the Republic are for the exclusive use of the President of the Republic and the fugitive Vladimir Cerrón never got into any of the vehicles (…),” he added.
He also stated that “the vehicle in question, with the license plate G, I don’t know how many, never left the jurisdiction of Lima.” He was referring to the registration EGR 844, corresponding to the armored car identified as “the chest.”
The company Covi Perú, concessionaire of the Panamericana Sur highway, has reported that this vehicle “passed through the Ica toll booth on February 27 of this year” in the Chilca plaza, according to a document that it submitted in response to the Congressional Oversight Committee.
Days earlier, the car was photographed at a gas station near the Mikonos condominium in the southern part of Asia, where police had been searching for Cerrón.
According to an audio attributed to the Minister of the Interior, Juan José Santiváñez, he said that the fugitive Perulibrist leader had been transported in the armored Lexus car by order of the presidential office.
Sources from the Government Palace confirmed to La República that that weekend Boluarte had visited a childhood friend in Asia and that the Lexus car and the Ministry of the Interior van were parked at the Primax gas station in Sarapampa, where he was photographed.
Confidential information
The Congressional Oversight Commission, chaired by parliamentarian Juan Burgos, of Podemos Peru, has begun an investigation into the case of the presidential car accused of being used in Cerrón’s escape. However, it is facing difficulties from the Executive.
With a resolution last Tuesday, the 17th, the presidency decided to classify the information on the vehicle “El Cofre” as confidential and established that only Congress, the Judiciary and other entities can access this information, not the press. However, it stipulates that the area of Parliament that requires the information must have investigative commission powers, which are granted by the Plenary.
Burgos has warned that he received a communication from an operator who was trying to arrange a private meeting with Minister Santiváñez. The Minister of the Interior has denied this claim.
Congresswoman Norma Yarrow, from the Popular Renewal Party, has asked the Parliament’s Oversight Committee to summon the police officers who drove this presidential vehicle from February 24 to 27, when Vladimir Cerrón is suspected of having been transported to Ica.
“I ask the Oversight Commission to determine the degree of responsibility of the police officers who transported the vehicle called ‘box’ from Lima to the south at the end of February. Was Vladimir Cerrón there? It must be investigated,” the parliamentarian said on the social network X (Twitter) on the Internet.
In the coming days, the investigation must define the next steps to make progress.
