The mayor of Anguía (Chota, Cajamarca), Nenil Medina Guerrero, A close friend of President Pedro Castillo, and the brothers and businessmen Hugo Y Anggi Espino Lucana, close to the presidential family, were arrested at the request of the Special Team of Prosecutors against the Corruption of Power. The authorities charge these three people, in complicity with President Castillo’s sister-in-law, Yenifer Paredes Navarro, having obtained benefits from fraudulent bids for public works, especially in the district of Anguía, where the town of Peter Castle.
The data. The mayor of Anguía, Nenil Medina, a close friend of President Pedro Castillo, detained by the special team in Lima. Photo: diffusion
At press time, the special team of police officers that supports the Prosecutors against Corruption of Power was still looking for Yenifer Paredes. On Tuesday afternoon, Paredes was not found at the Government Palace, where she is supposed to have lived with her sister, the first lady Lilia Paredes Navarro.
According to the monitoring and surveillance notes of the special team agents, Yenifer Paredes was in the Government Palace residence. However, presidential security prevented the prosecutor in the case, Hans Aguirre Huatuco, and the coordinator of the special team, Colonel PNP Harvey Colchado Huamaní, from entering for more than an hour. When they had access, they did not locate Yenifer Paredes.
According to the mandate of Judge Raúl Justiniano Romero, who ordered the location and capture of Yenifer Paredes, Nenil Medina and the brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino, the four were part of a conspiracy to digitize public tenders in favor of the JJM front companies. Espino Engineering & Construction and Destcon Engineers & Architects, owned by brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino.
Untraceable. In the Government Palace they said that the sister-in-law Yenifer Paredes was not there. Photo: John Reyes/The Republic
The four people began friendship links since 2019, when Nenil Medina took office as mayor of the Anguía district. During Medina’s administration, Yenifer Paredes and Hugo Espino met in the municipal administration because they worked for the same office, the former as a civil servant and the latter as a consultant. From that time, Pedro Castillo and Nenil Medina also shared a friendship.
With Castillo’s victory, Nenil Medina and Hugo Espino began to frequently visit the Government Palace, the first the head of state and the second the first lady and her sister Yenifer Paredes. Medina entered seven times and Espino five times.
At that time, Yenifer Paredes was working for JJM Espino Engineering & Construction, owned by her friend Hugo Espino. She knew that she was a state contractor.
On September 12, 2021, President Pedro Castillo visited Anguía and, in the presence of his friend Mayor Nenil Medina, announced the public works whose financing he authorized with his own handwriting.
in Anguia. On September 12, 2021, Pedro Castillo, Juan Silva and Nenil Medina. Photo: diffusion
A few days later, on September 16, 2021, the president’s sister-in-law, Yenifer Paredes, and her employer Hugo Espino visited the La Succha community to offer drinking water and sanitation works.
Precisely, images of said meeting in La Succha were broadcast by the Sunday newspaper ‘Cuarto poder’, which gave rise to the investigation that has led to the arrest of Nenil Medina, Hugo and Anggi Espino, and the search for Yenifer Paredes.
Indeed, as reported by La República, the meetings at the Government Palace of Medina and Espino took place before President Castillo issued Emergency Decree 102-2021, which authorized the financing of a package of public works, on October 29, 2020. 2021. Among the projects were five in the district of Anguía for almost 10 million soles. It wasn’t the only thing.
Operator. Hugo Espino Lucana, frequent visitor to the Palace. Photo: Marco Cotrina/The Republic
The head of state also approved a transfer of more than 19 million soles for the construction of a road that linked several communities, including where President Castillo’s family resides, in the district of Anguía.
More than 29 million soles in total.
The Special Team of Prosecutors against the Corruption of Power, led by the superior prosecutor Marita Barreto, has collected evidence that Mayor Nenil Medina awarded 10 projects to front companies of the president’s brothers-in-law, the Paredes Navarros, or close associates of them.
The Republic detected the track of the distribution of contracts when it discovered that a drinking water project for more than 3 million soles was awarded by the management of Nenil Medina to a consortium made up of the firm Destcon Ingenieros & Arquitectos. This company in the name of Anggi Espino Lucana was actually a front. Before the Prosecutors against Corruption of Power, Anggi Espino has confessed that the construction company was actually managed by his brother Hugo Espino Lucana, with strong ties to the family environment of President Castillo.
Confession. Anggi Espino admitted that his brother Hugo Espino managed the construction companies. Photo: diffusion
According to an effective collaborator of the Office of the Prosecutors against Corruption of Power, Hugo Espino Lucana is closely related to Mayor Nenil Medina, and he is closely related to President Castillo’s nephews, the fugitive Fray Vásquez Castillo and Gian Marco Castillo Gómez. These links would explain why the detained mayor Nenil Medina obtained from the head of state the financing of 29 million soles for public works in Anguía.
“Yes, I know him. I met him in the month of May 2021. Fray Vásquez Castillo introduced him to me with Gian Marco Castillo Gómez, as a person very close to Pedro Castillo”, declared the effective collaborator.
“The mayor of Anguía financially supported the (presidential) campaign of Pedro Castillo, with money that he had obtained as a result of a tender that he had won in the Municipality of Anguía,” said the witness.
“Nenil (Medina) is a personal friend of Mr. Pedro Castillo. And through the president he had relations with all the ministers and officials of various public entities, as is the case of Mr. (former Minister of Transportation) Juan Silva Villegas; the former Minister of the Interior Juan Carrasco Millones; former Secretary General Bruno Pacheco; former Minister of Defense Walter Ayala; officials from Energy and Mines, Petroperú; the current Minister of Housing, Geiner Alvarado; and Salatiel Marrufo Alcántara, former head of Advisors to the Ministry of Housing, acting director of Sedapal and contractor for the Municipality of Anguía. Also from the high command of the intelligence services, called DINI and Digimin, who are in charge of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Ministry of the Interior, respectively”, completed the effective collaborator.
According to some sources, the deponent would be Bruno Pacheco, who was present in Anguía on September 12, 2021, along with President Castillo, former Minister Juan Silva and Housing Minister Geiner Alvarado. Therefore, he is a front line witness.
In accordance with the judicial resolution that ordered the arrest of Yenifer Paredes, Nenil Medina and the brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino Lucana, they acted in concert to forge tenders with the complicity of President Pedro Castillo.
“From the acts of investigation and proceedings carried out, the existence of a criminal organization dedicated to the commission of different criminal modalities (criminal organization and aggravated collusion) is noted,” states the judicial resolution.
According to the same document, the criminal organization would be “led by the acting President of the Republic, Pedro Castillo, (and integrated) by the leaders (lieutenants), the Minister of Housing and Construction, Geiner Alvarado; Nenil Medina Guerrero, district mayor of Anguía; the coordinators (Lilia Paredes Navarro, wife of the president); the figureheads (the visible face of the criminal organization, such as Hugo and Anggi Espino Lucana, Yenifer Paredes Navarro, sister-in-law of the president and sister of the first lady. And David and Walter Paredes Navarro, brothers-in-law of President Castillo and brothers of the first lady ” .
In a report sent to the Special Team of Prosecutors against Corruption of Power, the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU) reported that David and Walter Paredes Navarro, the brothers-in-law of the head of state, gave 90,000 soles to the brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino. The money was delivered to them shortly before the Espino front company, Destcon Ingenieros & Arquitectos, won a 3 million soles contract in the municipality of Anguía, on November 25, 2021.
It is also presumed that at least in the case of Hugo Espino Lucana there would be the crime of money laundering. On November 11, 2021, Hugo Espino bought a KIA car for 12,000 soles in cash, allegedly with funds obtained from the tenders he won.
Sources related to the tax investigation confirmed that the case covers 10 contracts awarded by the Municipality of Anguía for more than 29 million soles in 2021.
One of the reasons is that the former co-workers of Yenifer Paredes Navarro and Hugo Espino Lucana participated in almost all the bidding processes, who in turn are trusted men of Mayor Nenil Medina Guerrero, as reported and documented by La República.
Even Yenifer Paredes, when she was an official of the municipality of Anguía, intervened as a substitute member of several bidding committees, together with the official Orlando Coronel Vásquez. Coronel delivered several contracts to companies supposedly related to relatives and associates of President Castillo.
Another relevant fact of the case is that the members of the bidding committees of the Municipality of Anguía repeat themselves, which for the Prosecutors against Corruption of Power would be evidence of an agreement to favor construction companies of dubious origin.
For example, La República revealed that the contract for the construction of a road in Anguía for 19.5 million soles was awarded to a consortium made up of the companies Ibervial and Grupo Constructor Parasol.
The first company carries a coercive debt of 5.9 million soles with Sunat and its owner was sentenced for corruption by colluding with public officials to win a contract.
And regarding the second, the address that the company recorded with the Anguía mayor’s office is an abandoned store in Ventanilla. In addition, Sedapal canceled the good pro of a contract for not accrediting a letter of guarantee.
The court order
The resolution of Judge Raúl Justiniano Romero that orders the arrest of four involved in an alleged criminal organization that set up front companies to forge millionaire public works with funds authorized by President Castillo.
President calls judicial action “media show”
“Putting on a media show, the Prosecutor’s Office raids my home in search of my daughter (her sister-in-law Yenifer Paredes Navarro), believing that with this they are going to break me,” said President Pedro Castillo on Tuesday night.
The head of state argued that the arrest warrant against his sister-in-law would be part of a political conspiracy to remove him from the presidency.
“(It is) a conspiracy between a sector of Congress, the Attorney General’s Office and a sector of the press to destabilize the democratic order,” according to his speech.
“Peruvians are witnesses to the continuous implementation of a media plan that aims to take power illegally and unconstitutionally. Palace and the presidential house once again were violated with a raid, ”he stated.
figures
29.7 million soles is the total of the 10 Anguía contracts investigated by the Prosecutors.
19.5 million soles is the largest contract delivered without bidding by the mayor of Anguía.
