September 2018, the three lots that form the premises in the Los Rosales Street – in the way the plots of Isla de Maipo – sector had a tax assessment of $55.136.958, a name of Bishop Edward field Durán Castro, father of Deputy RN Eduardo Durán Salinas, and that between days 8 and 11 January camp will be held for youth I am light, whose cost per person is 30 thousand pesos. But that plot, also the basis of a promising business, judging by the huge amount of turnover which has, according to the records of service of internal taxes (SII).
In this area were dug two wells, where it would extract and sell purified water bottling investments Southern Waters limited company, which includes the Bishop, Carolina Durán Salinas and his brother parliamentary children as partners. Currently, the bottler – whose trading address is Bishop Manuel Umaña 148 at Central station – does not sell water. As they confidenciaron the project, tests of the water drawn from wells in Isla de Maipo were not satisfactory and, therefore, looking for another way to produce.
However, since that company was incorporated in February 2013, has a movement recorded in about 5 thousand invoices, that are in view of the SII. The service maintains in strict reserve an investigation to check who are the people that have been invoiced and account services, since, in practice, water is not available, registered phone will not operate and the website esw.cl is fall. Turning with which it is registered is broad: “bottled natural spring and drinking mineral water, selling to the wholesale of other NCP products, investment companies and shareholders of movable capital assets in general”, reads their description.
The most difficult year even though sources inside the SII recognized that “Bishop is difficult to supervise”, because “he is the Church and the Church is Bishop”, alarms of possible tax irregularities of Duran and his circle were lit shortly after the of the Public Prosecutor, which through the prosecution of high complexity, in charge of the Marauder Felipe Sepúlveda, investigating the heritage of septuagenario religious leader. The suspicion already existed since the prosecutors Carlos Gajardo and Pablo Norambuena detected, last year, that the Deputy Durán was one of the victims of the pyramid scheme that made the company AC Inversions, where it lost $63 million pesos, and the obvious question was of where that money had gone out.
In 2017, during the Evangelical Te Deum, when President Michelle Bachelet heard the screams of the audience against her, the then President considered the possibility of reacting, but one of the reasons which contained it was that minutes before was informed that the Ministry of Justice was investigating the organization headed by Duran by irregularities to law 19.638, which establishes the legal Constitution of the churches and limits the movements of their respective heritages.
In August of that year, the Comptroller General had made objections by tax allowances that the Bishop wanted to get to the International Pentecostal Holly Church (IPHC), American Church that merged the first Pentecostal Church of Chile Since February of this year, which has been investigated for laundering assets in South Africa and Brazil, which owned pastor Jimmy Swaggart, who in 1991 was caught with a prostitute in a car, had temporarily retiring from the pulpit, and saw fall drastically its line most important income: donations. His son, Donnie Swaggart, was in Chile during that controversial Te Deum which headlined Bachelet.
From that day on, things have gone downhill for Duran. In October 2017, the Government froze the delivery of six billion pesos to repair the Evangelical Cathedral, which is a national monument. At the same time, the Prosecutor’s Office began research for money laundering, said Duran Radio Bio Bio in June, “makes no sense” and that “pastoralists are disabled to be able to demonstrate our income”, on the only occasion that has referred to this issue .
Love and business taking into account the explicit support to the President Sebastián Piñera, with the arrival of the current Government problems end up for “Pin Pon”, as it is colloquially known Bishop Durán from his tone of voice similar to the child character to interpreting the actor Jorge Guerra. But it has been quite the opposite. According to knowledgeable of the investigation, the prosecution has elements to formalize it.
The PDI already questioned a person that key results in the wash eventually of assets for which Duran can be formalized in the coming weeks. This is Alexia Fredes Nunez, 74, who acknowledged having had a relationship with the Bishop, who is married to Raquel Salinas, mother of his children and who has the title “Deaconess” in the Evangelical Cathedral. The prosecution has Magnifier on Fredes, because through it have would have made transfers of money irregular from abroad, presumably from the IPHC during negotiations for the merger.
Women registered as commercial activity a library of Christian texts in Central Station (where it currently operates a House of changes), has – according to the register of the conservative’s Bienes estate – a Department your name in avenida Pocuro 2026, from the year 2007, which has a tax assessment of $73.471.767, which does not record mortgages or charges, since it was paid in cash. His name also are two vehicles, a Chevrolet Cruze in 2015 and a Mazda CX 9 of the same year. The two are worth between 8 and 11 million pesos.
Connoisseurs of the couple placed the beginning of the relationship in the 1970s. Durán, with less than 30 years, was an employee of railways, faithful Assistant to the temple that precisely became a bastion of religious support to Pinochet, who introduced the Evangelical Te Deum at independence day celebrations in 1974. At that time, Alexia Fredes was currently married to Carlos Espinoza, lawyer and former staff member of the police. The couple together with Duran and his spouse, according to witnesses, were friends for years, but the relationship broke down when Duran and Fredes began an extramarital relationship. FREDES and her husband separated permanently, “rolling back” their marriage in 1996.
Would not be until 2005 when Duran, thanks to his political talents, manages to convince the rest of the pastors who appoint him Bishop of the Evangelical Cathedral, the position occupied by Javier Vásquez Valencia, the powerful Bishop of whom Durán was the Secretary and that there was died two years earlier. That year, Duran pays cash an apartment in calle Napoleon 3670, El Golf Las Condes neighbourhood, and the Marauder agency suspected way in which Alexia Fredes, between 2005 and 2013, increased its heritage which today amounts to $350 million taking into account that its only registered activity is the library of Christian texts that years ago does not work.
Particular key days is the period between 2013 and 2017 Alexia Fredes appears issuing tickets to the first Pentecostal Church in Chile, for a total of $150 million for “translation and interpreter” services to the entity. Officially, the woman told police that it was a service within the framework of the meetings with American representatives of the IPHC. In fact, it is photographed in activities with these people, described as a “successful business in Chile woman” in the IPHC Facebook profile.
But near the pair doubt this version, since the Americans bring translators and the own Bishop had an academic stay in United States, where he studied theology at the end of the 60s. The reason, they argue, is the break final between Bishop and Alexia Fredes in 2013, once it was surprised figure as his current partner, Ruth Sepúlveda Loyola, judging by the romantic photographs together with Duran that appear in your Facebook profile. To Fredes ballots would be the way to justify this payment and before any legal suspicion, women can try their excellent command of English.
The plot in Isla de Maipo is the last of a large portfolio of 28 properties including apartments, houses and parking lots. So far the research only focuses on Eduardo Durán Castro, but suspicions about the true nature of Southern Waters LTDA could direct the attention towards his son parliamentary. In this context, the Prosecutor evaluates request intrusive measures to investigate accounts of Deputy RN.
Consulted by El Mostrador, Bishop Durán was not available to answer questions for this story.
