New audios and WhatsApp messages would demonstrate how Juan Jose Santivañez, current Minister of the Interiorwent from having a defense speech to Harvey Quilting one against, because He longed to be appointed to the highest position in the Ministry of the Interior‘Panorama’ revealed two official forensic reports from the Attorney General’s Office that reveal communications between Santiváñez and his former friend, Police Captain Junior Izquierdo, known as ‘Culebra’.
The documents revealed by the Sunday newspaper constitute a formal examination of two cell phones from Culebra, a Xiaomi Redmi Note 13 and a Samsung SM A525. These were passed through the Cellebrite software, which is a powerful forensic tool to extract content from cell phones, used even by the FBI and in Peru by the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office. Both reports were already delivered to the Oversight Commission of the Congress of the Republic last Wednesday.
In the conversations, it is appreciated that Santiváñez commonly expresses his esteem for ‘Culebra’, to whom he considered his friend: “Yes, friend, you are my family. We do it in my house. I am coming in now, brother, and I am going to need true friends like you.” Here he also shows that he had a fixation on continuing to climb the ladder within the Ministry of the Interior.
This interest in being a minister was evident since January. On the 25th of this month, Santiváñez He sends his CV to ‘Culebra’ and tells him: “Friend, they’ve already called me from Casa Grande. Please, I need you to speak to René (Harvey Colchado), so that his predecessors don’t screw me over.” After Izquierdo asks what they told him, the lawyer answers: “I’m going… but, brother, we have to make friends, I’ll know how to defend him from what they’re doing to him. Let’s go with faith.”
Five days later, he still believed in the call from the Palace: “He just called me again and he is telling me to go to the Ministry of the Interior, that the minister is waiting for me. Call me right away, I want to know how to deal with this issue.”
On January 30, Santiváñez wrote to his friend again to congratulate him for defending Harvey Colchado on television: “Look, Willax, I’m going out now. I’m going out with Milagros Leiva, they told me that they’re going to cover the Colchado case. You’ll see how I’m going to defend him. Let’s keep faith, brother. My decision is supposed to come out tomorrow.”
Although the expected resolution was not published and Victor Torres Falcon remained in office. Despite this, he did not lose hope of continuing to climb within the Ministry of the Interior: “Brother, my decision will be issued on Sunday. Please, talk to people so that they can talk to their friends so that they don’t screw me over,” he wrote on February 13.
On the 18th he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Minister’s Advisors Victor Torres Falcon. Without hesitation, he told Junior Izquierdo: “It’s leaving with immediate effect, so I’m going to need all the support of my friends so that they don’t bother me.” That same day he told him: “Because now I’m not going to leave,” referring to the fact that in May 2020 he had to leave the position of ministerial advisor that he held for three days after the press published his questionable history.
Among the messages sent, the current Minister of the Interior shows his position regarding Quilting“The Prime Minister is a personal friend of mine and he has already asked for my CV. Tell Harvey that we are friends. I will always look after him, he has shown me that. And I am a grateful man.”
A week later, when the minister Victor Torres was removed from the cabinet, Santiváñez, He continued to wait to be appointed ministerbut on April 1st, at midnight, he sadly wrote: “I will not be the minister, they want a retired general.” Retired general Walter Ortiz was appointed. That same day, the lawyer expressed his sadness to ‘Culebra’: “There, friend, with pain still.”
On April 2, Sativáñez again expressed his support for Quiltingindicating that his support for him prevented him from being appointed: “They wanted someone to get rid of René and I said that I would never do it. I think that is what defined it, but I prefer to be loyal to my friends and my convictions than to owe someone something for a position.”
For his part, Juan José Sativáñez sent a communication to ‘Panorama’ and indicated that, to date, he has not been notified of the forensic reports and is waiting for them to be reviewed by an expert. He has never denied having had communications with ‘Culebra’, but he indicates that they were “manipulated.”
A change of speech in Santiváñez about Harvey Colchado
At the beginning of September, the lawyer Jose Carlos Mejia, PNP Captain Junior Izquierdo’s lawyerknown as ‘Culebra’, reported on what motivated his client to go with a recorder to the Wang Xiang Yuan Chifafrom San Borja, to record the conversation with the Minister of the Interior, Juan José Santiváñez. According to the version of his client, he began to suspect a “double discourse” handled by the head of the Mininter regarding his position on the High Complexity Investigation Division (Diviac) of the National Police of Peru (PNP).
In this regard, Mejía pointed out that his client went with the tape recorder, without knowing what they were going to tell him: “He has explained that. He detected that (Santiváñez) had a double discourse. Paraphrasing what my client said, Mr. Santiváñez since he was Vice Minister of Internal Order and even in the first days of assuming as Minister of the Interior, tells my client that he is going to strengthen Diviac, which is a very important unit that was in the fight against corruption. However, on the first day of being appointed Minister, he begins to question the supposed millionaire budget of Diviac, the supposed team that was lost and then located.”
In addition, Junior Left I would have asked Santiváñez for his statements and he told him that “they had passed it on to him”, without specifying who. He even forwarded the information to him, but it did not refer to his complaints against Diviac. Meanwhile, he realized that he had one speech in front of the media and another when they spoke in private.
