Peru: as corrupt as ever

"Just the one breakfast this morning, Mr. García? Or would you like two"

Another immersion in the putrid world of Peruvian politics.

Remember the scandal back in October when this Romulo Leon guy was recorded in conversation with Alberto Quimper of state-run PetroPeru talking about the bribes they were about to pick up for favours offered to foreign oil companies? Yeah, course you do cos I blogged about 9 times on the thing (here's one). It's also the corruption scandal that led to the resignation of the then Prime Minister Jorge Del Castillo and all the cabinet and the start of the woefully disappointing Yehude Simon's term.

So anyway, since then plenty has happened in the case, but things came to a head this week with two happenings.

The parliamentary commission charged in investigating as to how deep all this corruption malarkey went (and it went deep into the APRA party, no doubts) was expected to slap at least four ex ministers with formal corruption charges. But when it came to the vote, one committee member decided to vote against the charges and due to the nature of the committee this meant that the charges disappeared into puff of smoke. Carlos Raffo is the name of the committee dude that saved the bacon of Jorge del Castillo along with ex-Health Minister Hernan Garrido, ex-Health Minister Carlos Vallejos and ex-Mining Minister Juan Valdivia

Of course Raffo will deny it (in fact he already has), but people who don't live in the fantasy world of PeruPolitik need about 10% of their brainpower to work out that he was bribed by the APRA party to change his vote. This Raffo guy is one of those long-standing "controversial ministers"; a member of Fujimori's party, a vocal supporter of his ex-boss..and most importantly a corrupt piece of shit who would sell his mother to a platoon of Slavic soldiers given the chance.

Meanwhile, in true Peru style, while the guilty corrupt bigwigs get off scot-free the people who managed to eavesdrop the conversation between Leon and Quimper in the first place are now behind bars. Eight people from the Peruvian Spooks'Я'Us company "Business Track" (website here) were arrested yesterday, including the bossman who was.........roll on the drums.....the ex chief of intelligence in the 1990's Fujimori government.

And thus the sordid world of Peru, APRA and Twobreakfasts continues:

• The sacrificial lamb is chosen (Romulo Leon)
• The bigboy corruptos cross palms with silver, get away with it and lived to be bribed again (Del Castillo and his merry men)
• The whistleblowers are thrown in jail (as a lesson to the next people who dare to try for a bit of justice)

And President Twobreakfasts, leader of the most corrupt political party in South America, member since he was old enough to walk, stalwart party capo-de-tutti-capi for decades..... knows absolutely nothing at all.

Where's Waldo? (Peru Edition): Update

Remember the Keystone Kops? The Peruvian government's ongoing search for Romulo Leon is much better. Developments:

The head of the criminal investigations dep't today says Romulo Leon will be captured "at any moment" and his men are conducting an "intense job of intelligence". It's taken them a month to work out he's missing, so the 'don't your your breath' rule is in operation here.

The gov't has opened up a cellular phoneline so that people can phone in with information on the whereabouts of Romulo Leon. I really feel like phoning and saying "HE'S BEHIND THAT TREE!!! LOOK!! NOOOO, NOT THAT TREE...THE OTHER ONE!!" but I bet they've already had a thousand calls like that so there's not much point.

A special multiparty parliamentary commission has been set up to investigate the PetroPeru corruption. Yesterday they noted that there seems to be more cases of corruption than have so far come to light. NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

Whatevs; this comedy of errors has a long run ahead of it. Watch this space, soap opera fans

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Where's Waldo? (Peru Edition): The joke continues
Where's Waldo? (Peru Edition)
Today's news: Peru loses high-ranking minister in corruption scandal, rest of world yawns

Where's Waldo? (Peru Edition): The joke continues

Hey, remember all that thing about the big Petroperu corruption scandal and the politico dude Romulo Leon who decided to run away instead of answer to authorities about the backhanders he was caught on tape admitting? Well amazingly enough after a full month he's still on the run.

So today the Peru gov't have slapped a one hundred thousand Nuevo Sol bounty on Romulo's tush (that's about U$33k and a lot of money for a non-politico in Peru). Or in other words, the gov't and Police are either too corrupt or too stupid to find him for themselves (probably both). To give you an idea, dearest reader, there was a classic line from the absolute toppy top head chief honcho of police last week. When asked "Where's Waldo" he replied

"The thing is that Peru is very big."

That's a direct quote. You cannot make this shit up. Oh my how I love Latin America... wouldn't live anywhere else if you paid me.

Where's Waldo? (Peru Edition)

Yesterday Romulo Leon, the main accused party in the Petroperu corruption scandal, said that he was in his house and if the police wanted to talk with him "they know where to find me." Well today the police went round a-calling, and guess what? Yup, Romulo Leon wasn't at home. We now have the interior minister Alva Castro (again, one of the APRA inner circle...how convenient) saying that the dude won't get away. Otto politely suggests Japan as a possible place to look...after all, it has previous history as a hiding place.

Meanwhile cabinet chief Jorge MiniMe del Castillo has already had to come out and say he's met all the people involved but "it wasn't anything to do with me, honest", and those that understand how APRA works have already noted that the defendents' lawyers are in court trying to slap a habeas corpus on the whole thing and tying to prove that the recordings were made illegally so they are inadmissable evidence.

All good clean fun. But the next post on Peru will be something far more serious. Watch this space.

Today's news: Peru loses high-ranking minister in corruption scandal, rest of world yawns

Last night Peru investigative reporting program "El Cuarto Poder" played audio tapes of APRA party insider Romulo Leon and PetroPeru bigwig Alberto Quimper as they discussed the best way to make themselves a nice slice of bribery and corruption money. Between them they arranged for a foreign oil company, Discover Petroleum of Norway, to land five concession blocks in Peru.

To get the details, check out the Reuters story in English right here, but the fallout from this is that Juan Valdivia, Peru's Minister of Energy, has resigned. Quimper and his boss at PetroPeru Cesar Gutierrez have been sacked and Romulo Leon has quickly resigned as a member of the APRA party (though his daughter will continue as an APRA member of parliament no doubt. Got to keep the family tradition going...........).

The only surprising thing about all this is that these people were caught red-handed. Peru governments are never clean, but when APRA has the reins of power it becomes particularly corrupt. President Twobreakfasts is playing the indignant "we don't want these kind of people in gov't" line this morning, but anyone with the slightest idea of the wheels-within-wheels world of APRA knows full well that this shit goes on all the time and the party head trying the "oh gee shucks" is as pathetic as it is an intelligence insult.

LatAm political corruption is bit like cocaine trafficking. It's illegal, it happens, big money is made and once in a while a big consignment is intercepted and arrests are made. In Peru one packet of cocaine in ten is stopped. That sounds about the right proportion for the scum that run the wheels of power and the bribes they earn, too. So today let's all throw up our arms and say "oooh, what a terrible man!" and while we're at it, let's pretend it's going to be the last ever case of bribery, kickbacks and corruption in Peru.