Peru’s Prosecutor’s Office includes President Dina Boluarte in its investigation for alleged prohibited campaign financing

( Spanish) — The Supraprovincial Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Money Laundering Crimes of Peru expanded its investigation for alleged “prohibited financing of political organizations, money laundering and criminal organization” to President Dina Boluarte, former President Pedro Castillo and businessman Henry Shimabukuro, reported this Tuesday the Public Ministry on Twitter. He added that “the alleged commission of these crimes would have occurred during the electoral campaign of Peru Libre in 2021,” the party for which Boluarte and Castillo ran.

A source close to the case told that while Boluarte, Castillo and Shimabukuro are being investigated for the alleged crimes of prohibited financing and criminal organization, the former president has been added to the alleged crime of money laundering. The same source pointed out that, in the case of Boluarte, the Prosecutor’s Office ordered to expand the investigation to new facts related to the crime of money laundering for which it had already been investigated since 2021.

Who is Henry Shimabukuro?

Henry Shimabukuro is a businessman preliminarily detained in November at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, which is investigating him for allegedly belonging to Castillo’s shadow cabinet or advisory group.

Shimabukuro has said that he was a collaborator of Pedro Castillo, a sort of unpaid adviser to the presidential office.

Pedro Castillo, former president of Peru.

Now free, he told local media that he financed logistical expenses during the campaign for the second round of the elections of the then vice-presidential candidate Dina Boluarte.

The National Office of Electoral Processes (ONPE) he pointed out this Monday on Twitter that “given the information disseminated about alleged undeclared campaign contributions” during the last electoral process “by the current president Dina Boluarte, we request information from the people involved.” One of these people, according to the institution, is Henry Shimabukuro with whom has tried to communicate.

What has President Boluarte said?

Boluarte said this Wednesday that he “welcomes that the Prosecutor’s Office has initiated an investigation into statements by people around Pedro Castillo about alleged financing of the electoral campaign,” according to a message posted on Twitter for the presidency of Peru.

In the same tweet it is said that “the investigations will make the people who have been declaring in the media respond with the truth, deliver the evidence and indicate who and how they received alleged contributions and how they were administered.”

has been trying since Tuesday to obtain a reaction from former President Castillo’s defense, but has not yet received a response.

For its part, Peru Libre, the formation with which Castillo and Boluarte won the 2021 elections, has also not ruled on expanding the investigation and is trying to obtain a comment from its leaders. In the past, that political party has always been defined as “a totally clean organization”.