The Prosecutor’s Office of High Complexity Metropolitan East ordered the Investigation Police (PDI) two raids last Monday, August 23: one to the Municipality of Vitacura, where the computers of three officials were seized, and another to the house of former mayor RN Raúl Torrealba. Everything, under the eaves of an investigation led by the prosecutor Felipe Sepúlveda for the alleged crimes of falsification of private instrument, embezzlement of public funds and fraud and illegal exactions.
To achieve these raids, the Deputy Prosecutor of the Prosecutor’s Office of High Complexity Metropolitan East, Carlos Ramírez requested authorization from Judge Mariana Leyton Andaur 4th of the Court of Guarantee of Santiago. In the document with which he requested this, he also included the testimony of Antonia Larraín (45), niece of Domingo Prieto -former president and legal representative of the Local Sports Council, Vita Salud and Vita Deportes and accused- and close friend of one of the daughters of Raúl Torrealba, who for 16 years served as an official of the Municipality of Vitacura, and since July 2018 he assumed the Directorate of Community Development.
According to the newspaper La Tercera, his testimony is considered key since according to Prieto, Larraín wanted to “declare and self-denounce.” “As soon as she began to occupy the position, the accused Torrealba told her that every month she would receive from the accused Prieto an envelope with an approximate sum of $ 5,000,000, which effectively occurred until the month of December 2020,” says part of the document.
The suspended official said “that the envelope with money was given to her by Mr. Prieto and on other occasions Arnaldo Cañas or Cesar Silva, sent by Prieto.” He also added that “every year, for the week of Chileanity, she received from Mr. Prieto a sum of variable money, close to $ 3,000,000, to manage and spend on issues of that celebration, however, normally there were sums close to $ 1,000,000 that she had to deliver in cash to the incumbent mayor Raúl Torrealba. ”
These amounts went in parallel to his remuneration, since according to data from Transparencia Activa they show that in June of this year Larraín, a publicist by profession, received a monthly income of $ 5,486,600 liquids. The investigation, according to the aforementioned media, aims to clarify whether these ended up in the hands of the official or the former mayor Torrealba.
