As is already known, Ángel Valencia Vásquez, one of the candidates for National Prosecutor, is an experienced litigator and has a large agenda where, in politics, left and right come together. Although he is an open letter to piñerismo, his name is also familiar to both the UDI and the socialist world. And this transversality goes straight to the heart of La Moneda: in the Ministry of the Interior.
The closeness with the minister Carolina Tohá Morales has roots in the publicam case, edge Servel (fraud to electoral funds with ideologically false ballots and invoices), which was exposed 16 years ago, when she was a deputy. So, Valencia was her lawyer and represented her in a lawsuit filed by her against the representative of a commercial company that had prepared and issued invoices, and against all the others who were responsible for the illicit investigations. And although the Minister of the Interior responded to this medium that she does not know Ángel Valencia personally, because – as she pointed out – it was the lawyer Juan Domingo Acosta – at that time a partner of Valencia – who led the case, there are those who see in said connection a point in favor that could be added to the candidate Valencia to reach the head of the Public Ministry.
The case of the ideologically false invoices
On Monday, November 20, 2006, the then PPD deputy for Santiago, Carolina Tohá, learned that the Servel had questioned her electoral accounting, corresponding to the election held on December 11, 2005. The problem lay in an invoice issued by Trony Limited Trading Company. A name that would be repeated in the investigation and that the SII included —later in the process— within the companies investigated as issuers of false invoices and that would make up the Publicam-Servel ridge.
The Publicam corruption case was exposed at the end of 2006 and also had an edge in Chiledeportes. In simple terms, it was the violation of article 4 of the Tax Code for the facilitation and issuance of false invoices to evade taxes and to justify phantom expenses in electoral campaigns. Publicam was one of the companies that prepared the invoices.
The investigation uncovered a true criminal organization dedicated to creating paper companies and issuing unsupported invoices, which were used by legal companies to deduct income tax and VAT. The network to defraud the treasury had some 70 people, including officials from the Internal Revenue Service (SII). In the investigation of prosecutors Iván Millán and Nancy González, in 2007, there was talk of more than $730 million defrauded. And Manuel Arancibia was identified as the ringleader. The investigation ended with convictions for tax crimes, sentences remitted and payment of fines for six defendants.
This scandal of false bills and ballots to justify electoral expenses affected several politicians of the time.
It was thus that an invoice appeared from the Sociedad Comercial Trony Limitada, for the sum of $4,804,832 delivered by Einar José Aros Salazar to Carolina Tohá’s cousin, Jaime Tohá Lavanderos, who was the head of the deputy’s campaign for the district. 22.
Once the skein of payments, checks, and invoices had been unraveled, Tohá Morales filed a lawsuit for “Falsification or malicious use of private documents” against Aros Salazar, who delivered the false ballot for printing brochures for the campaign, and against all the others. that they would be responsible.
In these actions, the current minister was represented by the lawyer Ángel Valencia Vásquez, who appears in the case as attorney-in-fact together with Juan Domingo Acosta Sánchez and Darío Silva Villagrán.
The lawsuit against Aros was closed in February 2008, but Valencia’s connection to the PPD world remained.
