This Friday morning, the anti-corruption prosecutor Alexander Mendoza, together with the Anti-Corruption unit of the Special Force to Fight Crime (Felcc), arrived at the offices of the Municipal Directorate of Cemeteries to carry out a inspection of the facilities after the complaint filed with the Public Ministry by councilor Manuel Saavedra (Democrats) on irregular collections in that municipal distribution.
During the inspection, which lasted about two hours, the anti-corruption personnel managed to seize documentation folders; nevertheless, one of the fundamental elements, the computer in which the extortionist was operating, was no longer in place, since the Transparency Directorate he had seized it a day after the councilman’s complaint to investigate the incident.
Saavedra reproached that the Directorate of Transparency “all the evidence of the place” has been taken when there was already a complaint in the Prosecutor’s Office. He considers that they exceeded their powers and contaminated the place where the crimes were committed.
“They have exceeded their powers, they entered a place where a crime was committed and they took out all the equipment, That is why we do not trust that Transparency Directorate and we filed a complaint with the Public Ministry,” said Saavedra.
Likewise, the councilor assures that there would be more officials municipal authorities involved in these irregular collections, which is why considers it important that the investigation be carried out by the Prosecutor’s Office and not the Directorate of Transparency, which could not be objective.
“The Mayor’s Office has to know what its function is, it cannot do things that are not its responsibility, Furthermore, who reports to this Cemetery Directorate where the corruption was found? Who does the Directorate of Transparency report to the mayor? Also from the mayor, then the mouse is going to investigate who ate the cheese. The Director of Cemeteries herself (Cindy Camacho) said that he had made more than 13 complaints of irregular collections and so far none has been clarified,” Saavedra questioned.
The corruption in the cemeteries became known last Wednesday, June 15, when the councilor Saavedra shared a Tiktok where he exposed a former Mayor’s official -named Samuel Hugo Atristain- in a municipal office red-handed, collecting Bs 4,800 from a woman so that they do not take away half of a mausoleum.
@mamensaavedra Irregular charges?#for you #viral #Santa Cruz #mamen ♬ original sound – mamensaavedra
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A dozen victims alleged irregular collections formally adhered to Saavedra’s complaint.
Martha Rodríguez, one of the victims, who has her relatives in the El Pajonal cemetery, indicated that she signed the document to join the lawsuit, since He has proof that they wanted to charge him Bs 3,500 and that his procedure was expedited after the complaint exposed by Saavedra in his social networks.
“I was going to be one of the scammed, my documents were lost in February and they were not found, but just three days after the public complaint came out they were found and I was with the reversal lawyer. I have the name of the boy who told me that it was going to cost me 3,500 bolivianos if I didn’t want my niche to be reversed,” he asserted.
