Your daily dose of corrupt Argentines

This is cute. Watch this 1:27 youtube that shows how two traffic patrollers push a legally parked car back until it's positioned in front of a garage, then apply the metal shoe.

The video comes from this report in La Gaceta de Tucuman, the Argentine city where the incident took place.

Corrupt Peru government update

After the revelations of Peru's ex Housing Minister and Twobreakfasts sycophant Francis Allison yesterday, we now hear from his lawyer that his arrest for false testimony and contraband of U$50,000 (in cahoots with his wife) was "an innocent confusion". So let's think about this. If you too had 50 grand hanging in a bank account in the USA and wanted to get it over to your home country, what are the options?

• Credit card transfer. Yes, but that means you have to pay tax and also declare the origins of the money.

• Wire transfer. Yes, but that means you have to pay tax and also declare the origins of the money.

• Interbank transfer. Yes, but that means you have to pay tax and also declare the origins of the money.

Get the picture yet? I could go on, but let's just skip to..

• Stuff banknotes in your pockets and get on a plane. Illegal, but why do they make these silly rules anyway?

So this Francis Allison, ex-Minister, wife's family in Miami, widely travelled, knows the rules backwards, recently forced to resign due to shady dealings with illegal and very lucrative wiretapping business...... but decides to smuggle the money out of the USA instead of declaring it. If this is an innocent confusion Pol Pot was a peace prize winner. I'll be very interested in finding out just how many points this Allison dude has on his frequent flyer card, too, cos U$50,000 is a chunk, but I'll betcha dollars to donuts that it's the tip of a very smelly iceberg.

So whatever makes you think the Twobreakfasts government is corrupt, Otto?

Francis James Allison (for it is he)

Oooooooooh...just an inkling of mine.

On November 5th (but the news just came out today), a dude named Francis James Allison Oyague was arrested in Miami airport. Now this guy just happened to be Minister of Housing in the Twobreakfasts government until very recently, when he was forced to resign because it turns out he had close links and dealings with a company called Business Track (BTR). By way of quick background, if you remember back to this IKN post in January it turned out that BTR were illegally phone-tapping all and sundry in Peruvian political and biz circles.

So, this Peruvian cabinet minister Allison had been collecting cash from a bunch of industrial spies before becoming minister. He "forgot" to mention the connection at the time, was found out and then resigned.

So that brings us up to this month when the Allison dude was arrested along with his wife by US ICE customs officials for contraband and false testimony as they tried to smuggle over U$50,000 in cash out of the USA stuffed in their pockets. Here's a PDF link to the criminal complaint and it says that:

• The limit of cash they could take out on their person was U$10,000 each

• Allison and his wife knew this and also signed a statement on it

• Officers made a routine inspection and found U$30,250 on the couple.

• Therefore the officers made a more thorough search and found another U$20,000 on Allison's person concealed in his inner jacket pockets.

• The couple were then arrested (they were about to get on a plane to Peru (!) via Panama (!) but never made that final call) and have now been released on U$100,000 bail, which has been stumped up by a 'family member living in Miami (oh, ain't that just da lucky?)

Slush funds for governments anyone? This one could run and run.

UPDATE: Now the top story in El Comercio (and all other media) in Peru

Special post for Peruvian readers: This logo is for you, guys

Of course Peru is a serious country. Whatever makes you think that people won't rip you off left, right and centre on the slightest pretext?

This story is getting massive coverage in Spanish language Peru press today and has been confirmed as true. Thye're now talking of jailing the woman who thought of the ruse for four years....but no worries about the millionaire bribes that politicos are pocketing while this scandal keeps the chattering classes occupied. Here's the only EngLang version of it I can find so far, from the Peru-On-Prozac-Only-Good-News-Please site, Living In Peru.

The story of the theft of a lung of the exhibition "The Human Body. Real and fascinating" that captured everyone's attention in early October, was actually a farce, that was aimed to generate greater ticket sales, according to the local TV program "Prensa Libre."CONTINUES

Peru Mining, Taxes, Tomás Cenzano and the APRA Party's Contribution to Society

Remember back in March when the Winchumayo gold mine in the Ituata district of Puno, Peru suffered a landslide and multiple deaths ensued? Well, we wrote about it at IKN in this post right here if memory isn't serving so well.

So today this story is hitting the wires in Peru, all about how the government SUNAT tax office is launching a big campaign to get back taxes paid by those that have dragged their feet at the moment of paying their dues to society. Chief among debtors is a mining company called "Media Naranja" that owes the state a cool two hundred and twenty-three million, eight hundred and seventy-nine thousand, four hundred and fifty-four Nuevos Soles...and 40 cents. To give context, at today's exchange rate that's U$76.93m in greenbacks. A lot of cash.

So what's the connection between paragraph one and paragraph two? Well, Winchumayo is owned by three entities who then rent out its operation to the hundreds (even thousands) of artisanal miners who work the seams and get the gold. The typical system in the Andean Amazon basin region where Winchumayo is located is to get the miners to work five days for the owners, then on the 6th day anything they produce they keep (other areas use different ratios of days). Here are the three owners:

• APRA Congressman Alfredo Tomás Cenzano Sierralta (33%)

• The mayor of the Ituata district, Roger Saya Tapara (34%)

• Foreign private mining company Oro Vega S.A.C. (with offices in Lima) (33%)

In other words, a private miner and two politicians have been making their millions via the ethically dubious, clearly dangerous and almost totally unregulated world of the South American artisanal miner. But the interesting one is Alfredo Tomás Cenzano Sierralta, and for two reasons:

• Members of Congress are prohibited from being involved in this sort of business under the Peru parliament's ethical standards and, more importantly, it contravenes Peru's mining law. Thus Cenzano is violating the rules of Congress and the law of his land to make himself rich, not just getting rich on the backs of the artisan miners paid their pittances under extremely dangerous and unhealthy work conditions.

• Alfredo Tomás Cenzano Sierralta is the 45% owner of 'Media Naranja', the mining company mentioned above that owes the taxman nearly U$77m. Media Naranja is exactly the same kind of set up as Winchumayo, as it owns and mines gold concessions in the Andean amazon basin via the same abusive labour agreements with artisanal miners, the same bad practices, the same get-rich-at-all-costs attitude of the owners. Same, same , same.

And that's how the APRA party works in Peru, folks. You often see me mention the stinking corruption of the APRA party, but it's not so often that an open-and-shut case of its disgusting modus operandi comes to light. An APRA congressman abusing workforce and environment to get rich on unregulated gold production that doesn't pay his taxes to multimillion dollar levels.

Alfredo Tomás Cenzano Sierralta (for it is he)

These are the people running Peru in 2009. No wonder people think it's investor-friendly.

Viva investment grade. Viva, viva, viva.

Peru: Monterrico, Majaz and the putrid stench of impunity

A sickening development has come to my attention today.

Remember the case of the torture of 29 indigenous locals at the Monterrico Metals mining camp at Majaz (now re-named 'Rio Blanco' to protect the image of the scum involved)?

This week CNR Peru reports that the fiscal (public prosecutor) that was present and was an eyewitness to the events, even taking part himself, has had all charges against him dropped by the Peruvian judiciary (in the parlance, his case has been 'archived'). It all happened very quietly two weeks ago and has only come to light this week. The reason given by the putrid, corrupt judge in charge is that there "is not sufficient evidence that he was aware of the torture suffered by the members of the community".

So please note that the corrupt judge in charge, Sofia Milla of Piura, recognizes that the 29 people were in fact tortured. However she refuses to recognize that the fiscal present, Felix Toledo Leiva, knew about the torture even though;

• all 29 victims testified he was there

• all 29 victims said he was an eyewitness to the brutality

• there is photographic evidence that shows, without a shadow of a doubt, that he saw what was going on

• the photos show him in the presence of injured and tortured individuals

• various of the tortured individuals, including the women victims, testify that he shouted insults, made physical threats and even violently pulled the hair of one of the women

So due to the bribed judge Sofia Milla and the corrupt, money-at-all-costs APRA government of Twobreakfasts, a man who should rot in jail as an example to all walks away without a care in the world. This is the Peru that those blind morons at Fitch think is worthy of your money as investment grade.

Hat Tip to the excellent blog, Huanca York Times

Birds of a feather

Cook da bookz

So Manuel Runaway Rosales lands in Peru last Sunday and applies for some kind of weirdass political asylum by filing a 350 page petition/report/life story/gawdknowswhat with the Peruvian judiciary.

But guess who he has as his legal council? (update: Aww gawd..it's "counsel". All those wasted years at skool) None other than disgraced Prime Minister and Twobreakfasts right-hand man, Jorge MiniMe Del Castillo! Yes indeed, the PM that was caught up in the middle of the massive Petrogate corruption scandal last year has decided to "help" Rosales because he's some sort of "democrat".

OH THE HUMANITY! LOL!

Reuters has all the details in this report right here.

Whatever makes you think Peru's APRA is a bunch of corrupt scum?

Asia, as well as being a continent, is the name of a coastal district of Peru that covers a 50km stretch of the most desirable and expensive coastline on the Pacific coast of South America. It's one of the places middle class Limeños have adopted as the place to hang in summer, with second homes mushrooming.....

.... and nocturnal boulevards doing good business.


It's also the district where the woman in this picture.......

.....a certain Yary Valencia, has recently managed to buy 50 hectares of real estate for the princely sum of two US cents per square metre, which adds up at a touch over U$10,000 for land worth millions.

How did she do it? Nobody is exactly sure right now, but the 800 residents of the area bought up are crying merry hell. They made it on to Peruvian investigative reporter Nicolás Lucór's TV show last night calling scam, foul, rip-off and plenty of other names.

But who's the guy in that photo with Yary? Dudettes and dudes, may I present to you Yary's husband César Zumaeta, APRA member of congress in the National Government and one of the rising stars in President Twobreakfasts' political machine. Sheer coincidence that an APRA congressman would be mixed up in a scam rip-off land deal though, for sure.

Hat tip Mate Pastor

Oh Noes! Canada isn't the centre of the world!

• Maybe it's because people don't like the loonie

• Maybe it's because people are fed up to the back teeth with Da Boyz

• Maybe it's because people are sick to death of wanting in to a small miner and are offered 24 on the bid and 29 on the ask by corrupt pigs in suits and ties.

• Maybe it's because of the regulatory body, the OSC, that has managed to bring just two people to rights this decade (not joking, that's the number of convictions since 2000) and obviously doesn't give a damn about the impunity under their very noses.

But whatever it is, people are voting with their feet. The junior mining companies wise enough to spread their traded stock around other markets are now feeling the benefit of this move. Case in point is one of IKN's favoured microdots, Vena Resources (VEM.to), that traded just 1,000 shares in Toronto yesterday, but 63,000 in Frankfurt this morning and over 126,000 shares on the Lima, Peru BVL exchange yesterday (with closing bell bid at 21 and the ask at 22...that's how you run an investor-friendly exchange). Another one is Candente Resources (DNT.to), doing nearly half a million shares in volume in Lima yesterday. Plenty more examples to choose from, too.

Wouldn't it be funny if one day they rang the bell on the TSE and nobody came to play?