The number of citizens arrested for the murder of the professor and revolutionary leader Carlos Lanz has increased to 15, the Attorney General of the Republic, Tarek William Saab, reported on Monday.
“Until now we have 15 people detained and 13 charged for this act. We will present the two detainees in the next few hours, I am keeping the names, linked to the hit men, “Saab said during a press conference, in which he announced the progress made after the investigations of the case.
Of the 13 people charged, the Attorney General specified that they are identified as: Glenn Castellanos, Maxyorisol Cumare, Tito Viloria, Elis Becerra, José Pinto, Hely Pinto, Zaida Suárez, Darwin Zambrano, Oliver Medina, Maryuri Acevedo, Diego Aterhotua, Alyeska Gil and Abyayala Lanz.
These citizens were charged with the crimes of contract killing, association to commit a crime, corruption, concert with a contractor, simulation of a punishable act and cover-up.
The Public Ministry is looking for all the accomplices in the case, “to close the circle of investigation, an effort that we concentrated in the state of Aragua.”
He also said that most of the technical investigations have been carried out in four regions of the country: Zulia, Caracas, Aragua and Cojedes.
Given these new findings, the attorney general, Tarek William Saab, emphasized that the Public Ministry has so far carried out some 300 inquiries and investigations, since the kidnapping and subsequent murder of Professor Carlos Lanz occurred (August 2020).
Report of the facts
Since the first day of her disappearance on August 8, 2020 from her home in Maracay, Aragua state, the Public Ministry (MP) has maintained that the victim left her house voluntarily, because no traces of violence were found.
«There was never an action of a violent, armed nature, inside or outside the home of Professor Carlos Lanz. His disappearance was voluntary and without signs of violence,” he said.
A yellow alert was also activated so that it would be known that the professor was being searched and alerted to his presence in another country, the Prosecutor said.
Likewise, he reiterated that financial profiles of all his relatives, tests and expertise “that gave us some keys” were carried out.
With the first tests carried out on people linked to Professor Lanz, the Prosecutor said, “we were able to corroborate that the environment close friend of Carlos Lanz lied or withheld information.
“They will present a key piece of evidence that all of this, diverting the investigation to blow it up, I must personally confess,” Saab recounted.
For the prosecutors in the case and the attorney general himself, Tarek William Saab, the wife of Carlos Lanz, Maxiorisol «Mayi» Cumarealways lied.
«Our psychiatrists informed us that in the interviews he lied, because his alibi was very doubtful. Cumare stated that he left his house at 8:30 in the morning and that he left Carlos Lanz sleeping. He would even have left him a breakfast, a situation that his landlady denied. On the contrary, he suffered humiliation and humiliation at her hands,” Saab stressed.
The investigations determined that Cumare left the house at 9:30 in the morning.
«She never explains what she was doing between 8:30 and 9:30 in the morning, which is when the investigations determined the disappearance of Carlos Lance. It is invented that he was in a cleaning operation at INCES.
“The cleaning operation was denied by the director of INCES-MARACAY, it could have been planned for another day, but for August 8 it was not informed in the plans with INCES NACIONAL,” he added.
safety mechanism
An interesting detail in the case of the disappearance of Carlos Lanz was that he always informed, as a security mechanism, who he was going out with, “but this time he didn’t. It is the alibi for her to cover up her participation in the event », pointed out the Prosecutor.
“A video was collected in which Cumare is seen leaving his house at 9:30 in the morning, revealing a disparity in schedules which he was never able to explain,” Saab said.
Discarded thesis of kidnapping by foreign forces
The expertise and investigations carried out by the Public Ministry, from the first moment of the event, made it possible to rule out the thesis that Carlos Lanz had been kidnapped.
«It was tried to impose that Carlos Lanz had been kidnapped by foreign intelligence forces, to later be handed over to Colombian paramilitaries. Then there was talk that it was a disappearance at the expense of the Government », he recounted.
Cumare also founds and creates the Search Committee, together with Tito Viloria, «the first meeting is held in San Mateo, Aragua state. The main spokeswoman was Cumare.’
Criminalization of the Venezuelan State
Carlos Lanz’s entourage tried in the first moments of the investigation to criminalize the actions of the Venezuelan State, however, “they (the accused) have revealed the correct treatment that both the Public Ministry and the State have given them and their relatives , the propaganda was to directly attack the Public Ministry. They were trying to criminalize the Venezuelan State,” added the Prosecutor.
He reiterated that “we have not skimped on being 24 hours attending this case as we did from the beginning”, emphasizing that at this stage, the third phase of the investigation, they assumed it with more force, emphasizing the power of the denunciation.
He recalled that at the end of April of this year the Public Ministry gave a boost to the investigation, with the installation of a technical table and a telephone line was enabled to receive information about the case.
«The change of residence of the maid of the Lanz-Cumare family house, Maryuri Acevedo, was discovered; located at the end of June in Mene Grande (Zulia); who provided new elements for the investigation that pointed to Mayi Cumare,” Saab emphasized.
The Prosecutor reported that Acevedo detailed Cumare’s bad relationship with Lanz, as well as her continuous fights “and aggression towards him, as well as the identification of Glenn Castellanos and Oliver Medina as Cumare’s extramarital partners.”
Figure: Glenn Castellanos “the informer”
These new findings and investigations located Glenn Castellanos, who after being interviewed provided the information “that gives the definitive turn to the investigation” and admitted having participated in the murder of Lanz, for which he betrayed Cumare.
“Castellanos accepted the denunciation that is established in article 40 of the Organic Code of Criminal Procedure for crimes of Organized Crime or Violent Crime and has total probative value,” Saab said.
On July 7, at the request of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Castellanos’s denunciation hearing was held before the 4th Court of Crimes Related to Terrorism and Criminal Gangs.
“Before the judge, Castellanos confirmed that he was contacted three months earlier by Mayi Cumare to disappear Carlos Lanz and that he received a payment of 8,000 dollars to hire the assassins who would carry out the kidnapping and murder,” he added.
Likewise, “that the person in charge of getting Lanz out of his house was Tito Viloria, who was trusted by Carlos. That Lanz was murdered and his body disappeared from the Tito Viloria farm located in Cojedes. That cannot be ignored,” Saab said.
Another interesting fact about the case, said the Prosecutor, is that “Glenn Castellanos and Tito Viloria were suppliers to INCES and that they paid commissions of 20% to Cumare for each assigned contract.”
Aragua train involved in the case
“We have been able to confirm that Glenn Castellanos is part of the Aragua Train and maintains a criminal life,” Saab revealed in relation to this defendant.
In a confession made, Lanz’s wife detailed her participation in the events and confirms that she asked a robber, a member of the Aragua Train.
The attorney general, Tarek William Saab, explained that “they are looking for the perpetrators and that is why the two new arrests bring the number of detainees in these events to 15, the latter two linked to the Aragua Train, whom we are going to interview and charge.” ».
“The case, despite all the confessions and investigations, continues. We will get to everything we have to clarify », he remarked.
