The former regional governor of Lambayeque Yehude Simon Munaro He was transferred Tuesday to the Prefecture of Lima, where he will serve the remaining nine days of his preliminary detention. The former head of the Ministerial Cabinet faces an investigation for the alleged crimes of collusion and money laundering for the tender of the Olmos project in favor of Odebrecht, in exchange for illegal contributions for his re-election campaign in the north of the country in 2006.
Yehude Simon, who entered framed the police headquarters of Avenida España, said he did not receive money from the Brazilian construction company, when asked by the press.
The former prime minister could receive a 12-year sentence with 11 months in jail, according to the prognosis of penalty prepared by prosecutor José Domingo Pérez only for the alleged crime of money laundering. This element was included in the preliminary arrest warrant issued by Judge María Álvarez Camacho against the leftist politician, to whom El Comercio had access in its entirety.
Pérez, a member of the Lava Jato special team, took into account for this calculation that Simon Munaro has no criminal record.
The precise resolution that the prognosis of penalty for the alleged crime of collusion has not yet been made, “corresponding the sum” of sentences.
The same penalty calculation was applied to Pablo Enrique Salazar Torres, former manager of the Olmos project. The technician was also previously arrested on the eve.
“Odebrecht actively supported” his campaign
The Lava Jato special team also included, in the request for preliminary detention of the former regional governor of Lambayeque, the testimony given by the former superintendent of Odebrecht in Peru Jorge Barata on the last January 31 in Curitiba (Brazil). The former executive said the construction company “actively supported” Simon’s re-election campaign.
He added that the request for the Brazilian company to contribute economically to Simon’s Humanist Party, was in the “context” of the Olmos project.
Barata explained that Odebrecht Not only did he give money for Simon’s reelection campaign in Lambayeque, but he also gave him “professional support” so that his candidacy will have a campaign plan.
“This is how during the campaign a polling company Vox Populi was hired to prepare a public opinion investigation aimed at identifying the voting intentions for regional elections as well as a political campaign advisor, Eliseo Piris Thenarde, the company was called Marketing Communication Set LTD ”, he stressed.
In communication with El Comercio, Luis Benavente, director of the consulting firm Vox Populi, indicated that his company started operating in April 2007 and sent the Sunat record that records that date to El Comercio. For that reason, he emphasized that it is impossible for them to have carried out a survey for Simon’s campaign to re-election to the Regional Government of Lambayeque a year earlier.
According to the tax file, Barata said that the total contribution of the Brazilian firm to Simon Munaro was US $ 300,000, money sent to him through the late businessman Javier Málaga Cocchella and Salazar Torres.
The former Odebrecht representative in Peru indicated that the Brazilian company made this illegal contribution, in several games through two ‘codinomes’: ‘Gorno’ and ‘Terco’.
According to the company’s payroll, these two nicknames appear in the Olmos project.
Before the Public Ministry, Yehude Simon He acknowledged that Salazar Torres was a treasurer of the Humanist Party since 2006, “being the person in charge of seeing the issue of economic funds for the re-election campaign.”
The former project manager Olmos chose to remain silent when the prosecution summoned him to take his demonstration.
An economic damage of more than US $ 50 million.
The Public Ministry also considers that Yehude Simon, as regional president of Lambayeque, signed in 2004 the granting of the Olmos transfer project concession in favor of Odebrecht without the Brazilian company setting “in a valid way” the maximum rate for the price of water. This caused, he adds, an economic damage of more than US $ 50 million to the Peruvian State.
Pérez Gómez- in his request for preliminary detention for Simon and Salazar- details that on May 14, 2004, the Proinvestment Committee on Infrastructure and Public Service Projects approved the maximum unit remuneration presented by BNP Paribas. This document established that the Peruvian State should pay between US $ 0.0628 to Odebrecht per cubic meter of water transferred.
However, according to the fiscal thesis consigned in the resolution of Judge María de los Ángeles Álvarez, BNP Paribas to establish the amount considered the total investment of US $ 147’284,000 for the Olmos project, “without deducting” the co-financing of US $ 77 million that the Peruvian State, through the central government, made to work.
“A distribution proportional to the amounts of contributions from the Peruvian State and the concessionaire [Odebrecht] determine that the maximum remuneration that should be recommended is US $ 0.0343; what according to the prosecutor’s office, having understood the US $ 0.0341 resulting from the contribution of the Peruvian State to the investment cost of public works, meant an undue economic benefit ”for the Brazilian construction company, underlines the arrest warrant.
The prosecution maintains that, from August 2012 to December 2015, the Brazilian firm was paid US $ 120,590,474, which is disaggregated according to the participation percentages of the Peruvian State (41.66%) and Odebrecht (58.34 %), “It was determined that US $ 50’237,991 corresponds to an undue payment derived from the overestimation of the water transfer rate”.
“Yehude Simon obtained from the central government a co-financing of US $ 77 million, so he had full and prior knowledge that the bidder who won the Olmos transfer concession should discount said contribution at the time he received the rate for the maximum price of water, which finally did not happen, ”said Prosecutor Pérez, in his request for preliminary detention, which was also accessed by this newspaper.
Despite this situation, he adds, Simon Munaro signed the concession contract with Odebrecht, “undue beneficiary of said payment [el cofinanciamiento del gobierno central] not discounted favoring it in this way to the detriment of the Peruvian State ”.
Edwin Espinoza, a lawyer for the former prime minister, denied his client has criminal responsibility for signing the Olmos project contract. He added that the former regional president trusted the reports issued by Proinversión.
“Where is what Yehude Simon I had knowledge [de esta tarifa irregular]? What a regional president or minister does is submit to technical reports, this in public administration is called reasonable or legitimate trust. He is not the specialist, he won an election, but that does not mean he should know about transfer, that’s what the technicians are for, ”he told El Comercio.
Espinoza also indicated that it is possible that Simon may have an administrative responsibility, but not a criminal one, because he did not appoint the officials who established the contest rules.
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