At the beginning of January 2021, a Miami news portal -of an anti-Castro and anti-Maduro nature- published a report that threatened to be a political bomb in the country, all this 11 months before the presidential election on November 21. In February of the same year, the article was republished in an opposition media outlet in Venezuela. The notes were entitled: The secret accounts of Chilean politics.
The news suggested a scandal. It revealed the secret accounts in tax havens of 11 “Chilean socialism” politicians, including those of the then PPD presidential candidate, Heraldo Muñoz, and the president of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde (PS), plus those of the former presidential candidate of National Renewal, Mario Desbordes. According to the report, the destination of the offshore accounts were Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, Zurich, New York, New Zealand, Monaco, Miami, Gibraltar and Trinidad and Tobago.
Due to the lack of evidence on the veracity of these revelations, the publication fell into the sack where fake news ends up, but nine months later, in October 2021 -a little more than a month after the first presidential round- the former constituent of the UDI Marín Arrau made available to the Nuble regional prosecutor, Nayalet González, a dossier of documents that came to her anonymously and that not only spoke of the aforementioned accounts abroad, but also shed light on bank account movements in national institutions.
Thus began a criminal investigation that the former National Prosecutor Jorge Abbott transferred to the Magallanes Regional Prosecutor, Eugenio Campos, so that he could continue with the investigations. Sources from the Public Ministry point out that the investigation had no destination other than the provisional file, but three events marked its change of course: the statements made by a long list of politicians; the efforts of the then private lawyer Ángel Valencia Vásquez -today the National Prosecutor- to represent the president of the Senate, sponsorship document and power of attorney, and the decision of the prosecutor Campos to decree the secrecy of the investigation, after applying reservation to him by virtue of the Money Laundering Law.
From Pedro Araya to Elizalde
While the first months of the government of President Gabriel Boric were unfolding, more than 15 people linked to Chilean politics, including parliamentarians, former parliamentarians and former State ministers, testified by zoom in the case. Among those who gave statements to prosecutor Campos are Senator Pedro Araya, one of Ángel Valencia’s promoters in the Senate so that he could be ratified as National Prosecutor, and the president of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde, literally Ángel Valencia’s compadre.
In the information that Martín Arrau (UDI) presented to prosecutor Nayalet González in October 2021, Javiera Blanco (partner of Senator Pedro Araya) and former presidential candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami would be mentioned among the possible account holders in tax havens. .
Also included on this list are Brazilian lawyers and experts in commercial law Domenico Dos Santos Neto and Gabriel Buscarini Leutewiler. The brothers Luis and Amir Saab Morán, in turn brothers of Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman extradited to the US, where he is being prosecuted for money laundering, are also cited.
According to sources from the Public Ministry, a cause of this nature requires, among many other measures, at least, that official letters be sent to the foreign banks where the secret accounts are supposed to exist, procedures that must go through the International Cooperation Unit and Extraditions of the National Prosecutor’s Office (Uciex), procedures that -according to the sources of this medium- had not been carried out until a couple of weeks ago.
Management of Ángel Valencia and lack of transparency of the National Prosecutor’s Office
In the month of May, the date that coincides with the beginning of the declarations -by zoom- of the public representatives, the then private defense attorney Ángel Valencia made arrangements with the Public Ministry, directly with the prosecutor Campos to find out the content of the investigation. , opened months ago, for which he presented a letter of sponsorship and power in favor of the president of the Senate, Álvaro Elizalde.
El Mostrador consulted with the Communications Department of the National Prosecutor’s Office, officially sending two questions: Has the National Prosecutor had contact with the Campos Regional Prosecutor for this cause? (indicating the RUC), and if he formally renounced sponsorship (of Álvaro Elizalde)?
After requesting more time, the Prosecutor’s Office ultimately decided not to respond to the inquiries. On the contrary, the head of Communications, Malú Urzúa, chose to call this medium by phone to inform that the official response “is that there is no response.”
Opacity in the delivery of information to the CDE
At the time when it was not yet defined who would be the National Prosecutor, sources from the Public Ministry point out that the former senator and former Minister of Defense and current member of the State Defense Council (CDE) Alberto Espina (RN), would have carried out negotiations with the Public Prosecutor’s Office to gather background information on this reserved case for money laundering. It should be noted that the current National Prosecutor Ángel Valencia worked for several years in the law firm of Alberto Espina (Espina, Zepeda & Acosta). These actions by Espina caught the attention of the prosecuting body, since he is not a member of the Criminal Committee of the CDE, but rather the Labor-Environmental Committee.
In any case, the Criminal Committee of the State Defense Council has been waiting for weeks for the official letter (which must include relevant information on the case) that prosecutor Eugenio Campos must send them, in compliance with the law that obliges the Public Ministry to inform the CDE of each and every one of the criminal cases in which mentioned public officials in office appear, as is the case of this criminal investigation for money laundering; even if it is a “secret” investigation.
