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It was within the municipalities of Chillán and Iquique where a scandal of alleged corruption was uncovered in the tenders for the replacement of LED luminaires where links between the Itelecom company and public officials are investigated, who would have carried out criminal proceedings so that the latter was awarded contracts for an amount of 10,449 million between both municipalities.
The foregoing was revealed on Wednesday, May 6, when the PDI raided both building headquarters, almost simultaneously, under instructions from the prosecutors of Tarapacá and Ñuble. That same day, in the north, four councilors were arrested, while in Chillán, two public officials were left behind bars.
In both cases, which are substantiated in Ñuble and Tarapacá, the following were formalized in Chillán: León Marcelo Lefort, general manager of Itelecom, for bribery; Marcelo Campos, former legal adviser of the municipality and then judge of the Local Police of Pemuco, and Ricardo Vallejos Palacios, former municipal administrator of the commune, both for bribery and violation of secrecy.
In the north, the prosecution charged 15 people: four councilors, two municipal officials, León Marcelo Lefort and the deputy manager of Itelecom Pedro Guerra Guerrero, three representatives of the Elec company and an intermediary between the companies. Two other individuals also joined, who were mediators at the regional level and a municipal lawyer.
Let us remember that Lefort is sued and formalized in both investigations.
The tenor of the crimes investigated, where an edge for money laundering was also raised, was the trigger that both cases were declared secret. Given this, on September 12, one of the defendants in Chillán, Ricardo Vallejos Palacios, filed a request of inapplicability before the Constitutional Court (TC) for the excessive use of secrecy in the investigation.
Due to the above, the TC received a series of reserved antecedents of the investigation that the Public Ministry substantiates both in the municipalities of Iquique and in Chillán and that its origin is closely related to the replacement of the Led lights of the public lighting, awarded to the Itelecom company.
The information is contained in a report sent by the Chillán Guarantee Court, which details dialogues between the defendants in the capital of Ñuble, obtained through telephone interceptions made by the prosecution.
According to the background revealed by the persecutor, one of the dialogues, dated April 27, is between Marcelo Campos and León Marcelo Lefort, who agreed to meet and finalize the bribe. In said communication, Campos mentioned to Lefort that “they were asking him about the payment, referring to Ricardo Vallejos,” the documents state.
Added to the above conversation is another between the former municipal adviser and Vallejos where the municipal administrator contacts the Pemuco Local Police judge to “verify when his trip to Santiago will be made to receive his share of the money.”
An example of the above is a second conversation between Vallejos and Campos, on May 4, where they discuss the sanitary cordon that operates in the capital as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. According to the prosecution, these conversations sought to specify “one of the latest criminal activities related to the bidding process for Led luminaires in Chillán.”
Origin
But the plot of this story in the capital of the Ñuble Region began in June 2019, when the commission that would create the bidding rules for the replacement of public lighting was formed. This group was chaired by Ricardo Vallejos Palacios and had, among its members, the presence of Marcelo Campos.
The modus operandi of Itelecom, according to the persecutors, was as follows: León Marcelo Lefort and Pedro Guerra Guerro, assistant manager of the company, contacted Campos and Vallejos to offer them money in exchange for “carrying out illicit conduct in order to favor the company indicated in the framework of the bidding process ”.
The first to be contacted, according to the document, was Marcelo Campos. The lawyer has vast experience in public administration, and during the bidding period he served as an advisor in the legal advisory department of the Municipality of Chillán.
Campos was contacted in the first semester of 2019 by Itelecom to “provide them with the drafts of the technical and administrative bases, and the respective guideline for evaluating the offers,” state the documents delivered to the TC, regarding the tender.
The bidding rules were published on December 19 on the Public Market portal. But before that date, Lefort, together with Guerra and Campos, had held a series of meetings at the Talca casino and exchanged a series of messages through messaging apps. This, for the prosecution, generated an “undue advantage for Itelecom.”
It was Marcelo Campos himself who “exerted influence” on other public officials of the building headquarters of the Ñuble Region, so that the lighting company was awarded this tender. One of them was Ricardo Vallejos Palacios, who chaired the commission drafting the bases and who on occasions, in the absence of the mayor Sergio Zarzar (IND, pro Chile Vamos), officiated as deputy mayor.
“In these qualities, he accepted to receive the delivery of a sum of money by the accused León Marcelo Lefort to, for his part, exert influence over other public officials of the Municipality of Chillán in order to obtain the award of the contract in favor of the company, ”the prosecution maintains about Vallejos.
On April 13, 2020, the Municipal Council authorized the award of the tender for the change of the public light to Led. The next day, the decree was issued. On the 21st of that same month, Leon Marcelo Lefort signed the contract at the Bustos Notary, in the commune of Chillán. In this way, Itelecom buckled the sum of $ 3,904,326,635 million.
The payments
Post award and signing of contracts, Marcelo Campos coordinated with Marcelo León Lefort to collect the succulent sum of the agreed bribe. The appointment was made the next day at the offices of the lighting company in the Las Condes district, at around 12.30.
In that place, Lefort gave him 37 million pesos in cash, which was only the first part of the agreed bribe. Part of that important sum corresponded to Ricardo Vallejos Palacios for the “steps” made so that Itelecom was awarded the tender.
Campos travels to Chillán, surely thinking that everything was going honey on flakes, but he did not reach his destination, because in the capital of the Ñuble Region the PDI that followed his steps minute by minute stopped him to stop him.
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