The Specialized Provincial Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime of the Cuzco, began a preliminary investigation against 40 defendants, including regional government officials, suppliers and members of the Police, for alleged criminal organization. The fiscal file called ´The elegant of the south´ established 120 days of term for the investigation, in March of this year.
The The complaint was made by the regional councilors Cristian López Zereceda and María Regina Becerra Huanaco. in December of last year, before the Third Supraprovincial Prosecutor’s Office of Lima. In February 2022, the Superior National Coordinating Prosecutor of Specialized Prosecutors Against Organized Crime ruled that the case does not meet the requirement of national repercussion and ordered that the folder is sent to Cusco.
The case is currently in the hands of the provincial prosecutor Percy Vicente Huamán, who considered that the complaint “meets the conditions to start the preliminary investigation acts in order to clarify the reported facts,” says the opening document. The investigation is against regional governor, Jean Paul Benavente García, his trusted officials, alleged trainers such as Yony Lucero Tarco Nina, Percy Huamán Tacuri, Flor Maria Ttito Coaquira, and the police officers, former escorts from the regional authority: Carlos Enrique Quispe Gonzales and Joseph Herberth Benavente Villalva. The latter also a nephew of Benavente.
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The fiscal provision requests the Presidency of the Board of Prosecutors to submit information on the investigations in the anti-corruption prosecutors.
ghost trainings
According to the complainants, the alleged criminal network would have appropriated money from the Cusco regional government through payments for apparently non-existent services, training, consultancies and purchase orders. One of the cases corresponds to the payment of S/32,760 to Yoni Tarco Nina for training in driving techniques, use, blasting, transfer and storage of explosives in the Improvement of the Izcuchaca-Cruzpata Highway. Tarco is a 23-year-old accountant. It would have been detected that the signature of her service compliance report, service order, quote request, affidavit and curriculum vitae, differ. It is presumed that the service was not provided and that the documents were forged.
Tarco’s case is just one of the trainings that are investigated in other tax files. The complaint also alludes to the work of the Public Prosecutor, Pedro Galicia, who denounced the case for Omission of Functions last year, as well as other consulting contracts in Copesco and the Foreign Trade and Tourism Management. In addition, mention is made of the company IDEA GROUP PERU SAC, which would have benefited from several service orders from 2019 to 2021.
Governor denies the accusations
The governor of Cusco said he was not afraid of the investigations and that he will collaborate with the prosecution to clarify the facts. Regarding the training, he clarified before that he had nothing to do with it and that he arranged for the corresponding complaints to be made.
Recently, he declared that behind these accusations would be Congressman (APP), Alejandro Soto, to affect your image. “That is a rehash that has been on the agenda for the first few months of the year. The complaint was made in Lima and surely not finding more elements, he has returned it to Cusco. I understand that you are doing the investigation for an ex officio issue, ”he said.
