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Peruvian authorities arrested six people on Monday, including three police generals investigated in a corruption case for allegedly making payments to promote a grade in a case involving the ousted leftist president Pedro Castillo.
“Police agents, in coordination with the Public Ministry, carried out a mega-operation that allowed the arrest of six people who would be linked to corruption cases related to irregular promotions in the police institution,” said a statement from the Ministry of the Interior.
The portfolio detailed that among those captured are “three generals of active Police weapons.”
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the detained generals would be involved in the alleged delivery of money to irregularly rise in rank in 2021, a situation that would have had the authorization of the then leftist president Pedro Castillo.
The capture took place within the framework of a police operation carried out during the early morning and that included the search of several houses in Lima, Cusco, Tacna and Tumbes.
In Lima, two homes of the former Defense Minister, Walter Ayala, also investigated for the same case, were raided, procedures in which various documents were seized.
“On the subject of promotions, I have not received a single sol (Peruvian currency),” Ayala alleged before journalists.
In this case, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating Castillo and Ayala for the alleged crimes of illegal sponsorship and criminal organization.
The former general commanders of the army, José Vizcarra, and of the Air Force of the Peru, Jorge Chaparro, denounced in November 2021 that the government pressured them to promote officers who did not meet the requirements. This complaint put this case under the spotlight of the press.
Castillo was dismissed by Congress on December 7 and is serving 18 months in pretrial detention after a failed self-coup attempt.
