Peruvian police officers search the private home of President Pedro Castillo, on August 10, in Chugur, Cajamarca (Peru). Channel N (AFP)
Yenifer Paredes, the sister-in-law of Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, appeared this Wednesday at the main headquarters of the Public Ministry in Lima after spending 24 hours unaccounted for.
A prosecutor and several agents went Tuesday to arrest the 26-year-old girl at the presidential residence where she lives, but they did not find her.
Paredes is being investigated for criminal organization and money laundering in the framework of an irregular award of public works contracts that has taken place during the Castillo government.
The case has become another front for the beaten Executive of the new president, who faces five investigations for possible corruption and a serious institutional crisis after only one year in office.
The Public Ministry has obtained the judicial resolution for the preventive detention -for 10 days- and the seizure of mobile phones and documents of Paredes, the younger sister of the first lady, Lilia.
Accused of colluding to carry out “fraudulent bids”, the judge also authorized the search of her home.
Pedro Castillo, during his candidacy, at a breakfast open to the press with his family, in June 2021. Third from right to left, his sister-in-law, Yenifer Paredes. ERNESTO BENAVIDES (AFP)
The police tried on Tuesday afternoon to arrest the young woman, a business administrator by profession, at the Government Palace, but for an hour they were denied access.
When they finally entered the building, the investigated was no longer inside.
On Wednesday morning, another team of police officers searched for Castillo's sister-in-law at her home in the Cajamarca region, where her family lived and worked before the former teacher's union leader was elected president.
They didn't find her either.
Given the media and political scandal of her disappearance, her lawyer José Dionisio accompanied her this afternoon to surrender to the authorities.
She was responding to an interrogation tonight at a highly complex police investigation headquarters.
In the same investigation as Paredes, José Medina, a friend of Castillo and mayor of the Anguia district, and the brothers Hugo and Anggi Espino, owners of a small company accused of winning million-dollar bids due to their relationship with the president's sister-in-law, have been arrested.
It is not the only judicial scandal that splashes the president.
In other cases, two of his nephews are involved, one of whom has been a fugitive since May, and his former Minister of Transport, Juan Silva, also unaccounted for.
Yenifer Paredes appeared before the Congressional Oversight Commission on July 22, in Lima. Europa Press
Resignation of Castillo's lawyer
A few hours before Paredes' handover, Benji Espinoza, one of the president's three lawyers, announced that he was resigning his defense "for personal reasons."
In a brief statement to the press, he complained about the "lynching" that the press and justice operators were carrying out against whom he had sponsored.
Castillo has two other lawyers — Eduardo Pachas and Raúl Noblecilla — but Espinoza became Castillo's main spokesman since July, when the prosecutor's investigations piled up.
Hours later, the president asked him to reconsider his resignation and the lawyer rectified.
"We're back, stronger," he announced on Twitter.
Since the first investigation opened by the Public Ministry to Castillo, three general prosecutors have passed.
One of them, Zoraida Ávalos, launched an investigation in January against the president for influence peddling in military promotions and another for the alleged intervention of the head of state so that the state-owned PetroPerú chose the company Heaven Petroleum Operators in a purchase of biodiesel of 74 million dollars.
Ávalos was the first prosecutor in Peruvian history to open an investigation into an acting president —during the government of Martín Vizcarra— and according to her interpretation of the Constitution, investigations into Castillo should continue after he left office (as raised it with the case of Vizcarra).
In March, the prosecutor resigned to be replaced by Pablo Sánchez, who began investigating Castillo for another complaint about the irregular award of a million-dollar contract for the construction of a bridge in the Amazon.
In this case, called Puente Tarata, the fugitives Juan Silva, former Minister of Transport, and the nephew of the head of state, Fray Vásquez Castillo, are involved.
In addition, the attorney general who took office in July, Patricia Benavides, has opened a cover-up investigation after the deposed Interior Minister, Mariano Gonzales, attributed her dismissal to Castillo's rejection of her proposal to create a special group of police officers to investigate the head of state and his entourage.
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