Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office opens new investigation into Keiko Fujimori’s husband

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Prosecutor’s Office on Tuesday (20) announced on its social networks that the Lava Jato case’s special team ordered the start of preliminary proceedings for a period of 36 months against Mark Vito Villanella, husband of ex-presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, regarding brokerage contracts of his company MVV Bienes Raíces between August 2018 and July this year.

As reported by El Comercio newspaper, this new investigation stems from the criminal proceedings that both Villanella and his wife are facing for the alleged irregular financing of the pro-Fujimori party Fuerza Popular in previous electoral campaigns.

Specifically, the Prosecutor’s claim is that the entrepreneur’s company has been used by the purported criminal network led by Fujimori to continue laundering assets through commercial operations.

As a first step, anti-corruption prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, in charge of the investigation, requested an accounting examination of MVV Real Estate’s income, expenditures and financial expenses during the period in which these contracts were signed.

THE “COCKTAILS” CASE

This is the second investigation for the same crime against Vito, who is facing a 22-year and 8-month prison sentence request by the prosecutor for the case known as “cocktails,” which also includes Fujimori and several of her closest collaborators, as well as the same Fuerza Popular party for alleged irregular financing of the 2011 and 2016 electoral campaigns.

For this case, prosecutor Perez requested more than 30 years and 10 months imprisonment for the daughter and political heir of ex-president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), in an indictment pending review by the courts which in the coming weeks must decide whether to initiate proceedings against her, something she would have circumvented had she won the last presidential elections, at least during the time she would have been in office.

The prosecutor’s over 15,000-page indictment was brought for alleged crimes of money laundering, organized crime, obstruction of justice and false statements in an administrative proceeding.

According to the investigation, Fujimori had hidden, through fictitious accounting, donations from large corporations, such as US$3.6 million from Credicorp and US$1 million from Odebrecht construction company to finance her electoral campaigns.