Peru: US$20,000 in cash found in bathroom of Government Palace office

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The former Secretary-General of the Presidency of Peru, Bruno Pacheco, who resigned last week after a controversy unleashed by alleged pressures for irregular promotions in the Armed Forces, has now become the protagonist of yet another major scandal: A court has discovered that he kept US$20,000 in the bathroom of his office, located in the Government Palace.

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The finding was contained in the minutes of the prosecutorial search that was carried out in the place last Friday, as part of the investigation for the alleged crime of influence-peddling brought against the ex-official of the Pedro Castillo government.

According to the document of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, to which El Comercio had access, Pacheco answered that “the money is the product of his savings and the salary he receives as general secretary of the Government Palace, a wage that amounts to the sum of 25,000 soles (about US$6,000), also allowing voluntarily to count the bills exhibited, verifying that it amounts to the sum of US$20,000″.

According to the report, the discovery occurred among Pacheco’s personal belongings, in a room of the secretary’s office “corresponding to a bathroom and dressing room”.

The staff of the prosecutor’s office also proceeded to make photocopies of the bills, while Bruno Pacheco committed himself to “accredit in the shortest term the money exhibited”.

The search in the Government Palace was carried out by the Anticorruption Prosecutor Marco Huamán Muñoz. The Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating Pacheco for allegedly pressuring the head of the National Superintendence of Customs and Tax Administration (Sunat).

El Comercio tried unsuccessfully to contact Hugo Mendoza Malpartida, Bruno Pacheco’s lawyer.

During the search, the prosecution also inspected the office of the general secretary, where Pacheco was asked to exhibit public documents located in his desk and access his computer equipment and extract information from it.

All these acts were part of the “search and production of non-private documents, as well as the search of the computers of the general secretariat of the Government Palace”.