Peru Libre leader’s mother’s accounts are frozen for alleged money laundering

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A journalistic investigation revealed that the Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF) had frozen nearly 1.5 million soles (US$366,000) in accounts of the mother of the controversial founder of the ruling Peru Libre party, Vladimir Cerron, investigated for an alleged criminal organization.

The mother of the leader of the extreme left-wing party, Bertha Rojas, has been prevented from moving funds from three bank accounts for an amount close to 1.5 million soles at the request of the money laundering prosecutor’s office, as revealed by the portal Epicentro TV.

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Rojas, who is also the mother of Peru Libre’s spokesman in Congress, Waldemar Cerron, is a retired teacher who also has other properties in the central region of Junin, where Vladimir Cerron was governor, a position from which he was removed after being convicted of corruption.

According to FIU reports, Cerrón’s mother declared income of half a million soles (US$122,000) between 2014 and 2019, although with no known origin because her pension as a retiree remains intact in another account Banco de la Nación.

Starting in 2008, Rojas opened accounts and withdrew deposits for US$200,000 on average, before her son Vladimir was elected as a regional governor in Junín, a position he held between 2011 and 2014, and then re-elected in 2019, but suspended when he was sentenced to three years in prison for incompatible negotiation.

To avoid Vladimir’s jail time, his mother paid 284,000 soles (US$70,000) in 2020, which she said came from her savings.

In addition, Rojas maintains links in deposits, withdrawals, and payments with three co-prosecuted with her son Vladimir for corruption in the Junin region.

The prosecutor Ricardo Rojas, in charge of the investigation of the case “Los Dinámicos del Centro” for which it is presumed that Cerron led a mafia to collect funds for his party from the Government of Junin, requested the freezing of the accounts of Cerron’s mother and a judge must decide until when this measure will be in force.

The prosecutor considers that the party leader’s mother used the financial system to launder assets and would have used the illicit money to pay for her son Vladimir’s legal and judicial processes, according to Epicentro TV.

Last week, Peruvian President Pedro Castillo removed from the Executive one of Cerron’s closest collaborators, former Prime Minister Guido Bellido, and other ministers close to the party, a measure that was rejected by the Peru Libre bench, but which meant the removal of the most extreme wing of that Marxist group.