This Wednesday morning, the Attorney General of the Nation in charge, Javier Caraballo, revealed that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office ordered the provisional arrest of four people for the alleged commission of crimes against the public administration, related to irregularities committed in the National Charity Lottery .
He announced that they are three public officials and a private individual, who are part of an investigation carried out by said prosecutor’s office.
“This investigation began in March of this year on alleged irregular acts. The officials are high-level Lottery, these people, as determined in the investigation, taking advantage of their position in the National Lottery, illegally appropriated the products, call it chances or tickets, let the draw pass and once played the raffle, they sent third parties to change the prizes, ”explained Caraballo.
He added that, at the time of the events, the officials held the positions of director of operations of the Lottery, the address for the delivery of chances and tickets, and the provincial director of the Lottery in Panama. “At the time of their arrest, these people continue to work in the Lottery, but they occupy some other positions,” he said.
“Up to this moment we do not have all the tonnage that allows us to determine how much money, what we can say is that, apparently, this was done every week. This investigation revealed its first apprehensions today (Wednesday), we do not rule out that with the passage of the investigation, other public officials and individuals may be involved. This investigation was born with the theme of the Fatty of the Zodiac, however, the investigation has not been completed “, he declared.
The prosecutor in charge said that, during the raid actions, carried out this Wednesday, some public documents were found that should rest in the National Lottery, however, they were in the house of these people, which accounts for possible criminal behavior.
It should be noted that, a few months ago, the Public Ministry opened an investigation for the alleged commission of the crime of embezzlement, after the contradictions of the National Lottery of Charity about the process of payment of the prize of one million 4 thousand dollars of the Gordito del Zodiaco last April.
The Lottery is under the control of the Molirena party, an ally of the Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD), and the visible face of the entity is Gloriela Del Río, its director.
With this case, the Anticorruption Prosecutor seeks to determine if there is a crime of embezzlement. On May 3, the National Lottery announced that the winning ticket had been sold in Veraguas by the ticket holder Heriberto Castillo Aguilar, and that they were waiting for the winner to appear at the entity. A day later, on May 4, the entity reported that the winner had appeared on the morning of that day, so the “National Charity Lottery proceeded to cash in the prize of one million 4 thousand dollars.” They attached the photo of the ticket with the stamp of the institution, and at the top you can see the figure of 1,004,000.
However, days later, an anonymous video raised the first doubts about the transparency of the sweepstakes. A supposed network that is in charge of extracting chances and winning tickets is mentioned. Representative Francisco Pancho Alemán, president of the Nationalist Republican Liberal Movement (Molirena); his alternate, Maira Esther González Camarena, and Gloriela Del Río, director of the entity, among other authorities.
Del Río reacted to the scandal about the Gordito winner last Friday, May 14, at a press conference. He said that he had not collected everything, that the prize was in the entity’s vault. In a statement, they detailed that they had paid him $ 2,000 and that he has $ 1,200,000 pending to collect. It is up to the prosecution to dig to get to the truth. But the issue brought up the old practice of governing and dividing up institutions as political spoils.
