President of the Board of Prosecutors of Lima Sur reportedly collected up to US$2 million in bribes

Ricardo César Rojas León, the president of the Board of Provincial Prosecutors of Lima Sur, who was preliminarily detained for seven days on Monday, would have received bribes for nine years totaling $2 million.

According to the Prosecutor's Office, Rojas León would have been responsible for about 3 thousand cases. Several of these investigations relate to land traffic on the beaches of southern Lima. Of these cases, only four are known in which he would have collected amounts of between 5,000 and 30,000 soles.

Judicial authorities assume that, taking into account all the cases in his charge, Rojas León would have obtained up to $2 million in bribes. The data must be corroborated during the investigations.

BRIBES

Rojas is credited with committing crimes since 2012. These would be bribes of between $5,000 and $30,000 received in exchange for reporting or filing cases related to land trafficking on the beaches that were in charge of a group of officials from the Provincial Prosecutors Board of South Lima.

In October 2021, justice had already seized three properties linked to prosecutor Rojas León. The court decision indicated that he had investigations for bribery and criminal organization.

Rojas reportedly received bribes, including one in 2016 in exchange for filing an investigation into money laundering against a member of the criminal organization “Los secos del sur”, dedicated to land trafficking, extortion and murder in Pachacamac.

It should be noted that prosecutor Rojas León gained national notoriety in 2015. In January of that year, when she was in charge of the First Prosecutor's Office Specialized in Money Laundering, she reopened a criminal investigation against former first lady Nadine Heredia for alleged money-laundering, but the case was closed due to lack of evidence.

CAPTURE OF RICARDO RO

Ricardo Rojas León was arrested early this Monday. In a joint operation, which began at 02.00 a.m., agents of the Division for Investigations of High Complexity Crimes (Diviac), with the support of the Prosecutor's Office, arrested him after raiding his home in the district of Villa El Salvador.

As part of the operation, six buildings located in the districts of Ate, Punta Negra, Lurín, Villa El Salvador and San Juan de Miraflores were raided.

At first, the officers were not allowed in, who entered through the windows on the second floor and using stairs. In addition, the agents searched for the prosecutor's cell phones since they would have found only one of the three he uses. His phone secret would also be lifted to him.

Rojas León will be preliminarily detained for seven days and, for now, he would be held in pretrial detention for 36 months.

It should be noted that, in October 2021, the Public Prosecutor's Office also carried out the search, unlocking, and seizure of the prosecutor's premises.

That time three properties were raided: Rojas' home in Ate, the home of his relatives in Villa El Salvador and the headquarters of his office in the Public Prosecutor's Office in South Lima, Lurín.

At that time, the investigated claimed that the accusations against him are false. That is false, totally false. As the saying goes: he who does not owe it, does not fear it,” he stressed.

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