The Constitutional Court has postponed until next week its debate on the appeal to release Keiko Fujimori from prison, where she is being held during investigations into alleged money laundering and obstruction of justice. The Court’s president, Ernesto Blume, is in favor of her release.
In the meantime, however, the district attorney’s widening investigations have begun to uncover information on campaign financing of Fujimori’s presidential run in 2011 that raise a growing number of questions on funding sources as well as how the money was spent.
The first news this week in the new scope of investigations is that Peru’s largest financial holding, Credicorp Ltd, donated $3.65 million to Fujimori’s 2011 campaign. Dionisio Romero, president of Credicorp, authorized the donation from shareholders.
The donation was made in cash directly to Keiko Fujimori in a series of meetings at the home of Martin Perez, a former congressman, minister of Trade and Tourism in the latter part of Alan Garcia’s administration, and a former president of Confiep, the private business federation (2015-2017).
This week, Romero said their donation was to ensure Fujimori’s success against her closest contender, Nationalist Party leader Ollanta Humala, who private investors feared would take the country down the same road as Venezuela. Humala won the elections by a narrow margin.
According to the Banking Superintendency, an investigation is being opened on the banking operations that allowed the $3.65 mn to be available in cash.
But Credicorp is only the first in a long list of companies and business leaders lining up to give their statements to the district attorney.
Next in line was Vito Rodriguez, founder of the Gloria Group, who said his corporation donated $220,000 — also in cash— to Fujimori’s 2011 campaign. It also gave $200,000 to ex-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s 2016 campaign.
The Peruvian Chamber of Construction, Capeco, did not donate directly to the Fujimori party, instead channelling $240,000 through Confiep, the private industry federation which ran an advertising campaign backing Fujimori and defending private investment and enterprise. Graña y Montero donated $25,000 to the Capeco fund.
According to a statement by Abraham Zavala, owner of the CRP radio conglomerate, the Fujimori advertising campaign on their radios for the run-off against Humala was paid in cash — $266,000— by José Chlimper, financial manager of Fujimori’s campaigns in 2011 and 2016. Chlimper, a leading agroexporter, was elected to the board of the Central Reserve Bank by Congress in 2016.
Radio Programas del Perú, RPP, was also paid in cash by Chlimper— $210,000— for the run-off advertising, according to the statement made to the district attorney by Hugo Delgado, the former general manager of the radio company.
More information is expected to surface as more people are questioned.
Fujimori’s initial defense against the allegations has been that all donations were transparent and banked, and that much of the funds were raised through cocktail parties and raffles, and small donors. A number of small donors, however, have testified that they were cajoled into signing fake donations and have since been threatened.
