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The visiting minister in charge of the investigation into fraud in the Chilean Army, Romy Rutheford, prosecuted this Monday the retired general and former director of finances of the military institution, Rafael Piedra Schweitzer, as the author of the crime of embezzlement of public funds for an amount greater than 1,300 million pesos (just over 1.8 million dollars).
Piedra, according to Minister Rutherford’s resolution, must remain in preventive detention at the Peñalolen Military Police Battalion, located in Santiago de Chile.
The prosecution of Piedra joins that of active general Pablo Onetto on February 26, who served as head of the National Defense in the Coquimbo region, in the north-central area of the country.
Also as a detainee, Onetto is indicted for the embezzlement of 18 million pesos, within the framework of the “Tourism Companies” issue investigated by the magistrate, where dozens of retired officers and non-commissioned officers have already been processed from 2018 onwards. for the improper use of service commissions abroad.
Onetto, according to the investigation, was accused of multiple frauds committed during his tenure as students of the Inter-American Defense College in the United States, including a seven-day, six-night trip to Disney with everything paid for through public funds.
Other uniformed processed
Last September, in addition, Minister Rutheford tried six soldiers, four in retirement and two active, for the embezzlement of 16 billion pesos (more than 22 million dollars).
With more than 40 investigation files, with some cases nearing closure and others still under development, the millionaire fraud committed by officers and NCOs of the Chilean Army continues to be uncovered.
Former commanders-in-chief of the institution, such as retired generals Juan Miguel Fuente-Alba and Humberto Oviedo, have already been prosecuted for one of the most complex aspects of the case: the misuse of resources derived from the Reserved Copper Law, which ensured millionaires. figures to the Army and were spent without any management control.
To date, more than a thousand uniformed officers have gone through the courts due to the so-called “Milicogate”, one of the most serious corruption cases discovered in recent years in addition to “Pacogate”, the embezzlement by the Carabineros de Chile of almost 30 thousand millions of pesos. EFE
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