MEDIA CIRCUS MOGUL SCAPES FROM PERUVIAN LEGAL PROSSECUTION

MEDIA CIRCUS MOGUL SCAPES FROM PERUVIAN LEGAL PROSSECUTION

RODRIGO FRANCO SEOANE·SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2018

RODRIGO FRANCO SEOANE · SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 2018

This is in Peru, the world is upside down, everything the justice system, the state, the government, the institutions, law and order is the organized crime, this is a country where everything works the other way round, the good is bad and bad is good, we the people are the bad ones and the bad ones are the good ones. The good are left without patrimony because the system is in complicity with the crooks infiltrated everywhere, they take away our property, they steal our lands, they devour our time and our lives trying to recover our patrimony, it is a wheel without end, but when the true criminals feel that they will be judged, they flee like rats with impunity, after a while; everything is prescribed, everything is forgotten, everything is covered up, and the press is the main partner of corruption because it is the owner of what is seen, heard and read.

The almighty feudal lord of the 21st century because he monopolizes the electromagnetic spectrum as Goebbles did in Nazi Germany brainwashing the masses, wo owns media is the master and lord of politicians and corruption they all depend on him like sheep, since he can create virtual and cosmetic truth where he washes everything with his businesses and his associates, a true washing machine with a virtual and economic face, like the boom of universities that launder money in Peru, but he is not alone, el grupo Comercio has a partner in crime, the biggest bank chain who also is a laundromat banco de Credito seems to be his banking partner, he cleans up the media to change and generate opinions by mentally influencing millions, his “caserito”, with its web of power in the state and in justice because in this century everything with technology is media, justice and the judiciary also became media, everything is defined in the public opinion environment, if you're not You lose the judgments, if you are a media player, you win the trials or at least the judicial power takes you into account. If you are not a media player, your file rots in the rumas of the judiciary, the owner of the circus and the sewer, hides and conceals the mafias, how much less could we say as citizens and the evidence is obvious? that this justice has a price and that a businessman, a political thief with power in the means and economic power is untouchable and unpunished?

A multimedia group that has among its shareholders the owners of the construction company, the airline and the most important investment group in the country: Graña & Montero, Latam Peru and the Wiese; a Mexican magnate who from Miami controls an empire of 124 media outlets in around 15 Latin American countries; and an investment fund that has mining shareholders and manages millions of dollars of Credicorp and Sura from a tax haven in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman, account for 80% of the revenues of the media industry in Peru.

After arriving at the old headquarters of El Comercio, Luis Miró Quesada Valega, president of the company's board and one of the most senior executives of the family, climbed the noisy wooden stairs that at that time connected the garage with the second floor of the legendary property, located in the Center of Lima. They were dark days for local journalism. The judiciary prepared the capture of television entrepreneurs and owners of newspapers that received millionaire bribes from the National Intelligence Service (SIN) to support the third election of Alberto Fujimori; while the country sank into a political crisis unprecedented in history.

Immediately after entering the boardroom, Miró Quesada Valega inaugurated the shareholders meeting to decide the future of the newspaper in the 21st century. On March 21, 2001, the conclave began with the analysis of the situation in Peru after Fujimori's resignation and flight to Japan; continued with the presentation of the financial reports of the company and the subsequent planning to convert the newspaper into the largest multimedia group in the country. Finally, he spoke about the consequences of a phenomenon that threatened the newspaper market: the concentration and monopoly of the paper industry.

At the beginning of 2000, El Comercio was worried about the concentration of the paper industry in a few companies

"In the last two years, the paper groups of the world have concentrated the offer in few hands. Sixty-four percent of the world market is controlled by ten companies, "said Luis Miró Quesada, the first brother of the then editor of El Comercio, Alejandro Miró Quesada, while summarizing the international scenario of the paper industry and its impact on the increase in the price of paper. newspapers, taking into account that the newspaper imported 15 tons of paper from Chile, at that time. The worrying announcement was immortalized in the historical financial reports of a newspaper affected by the negative consequences of economic concentration. Ironies of the market.

MEDIA CONCENTRATION

Fifteen years later, El Comercio -founded as a two-page news bulletin in the nineteenth century- is the most important media empire in Peru, listed on the Lima Stock Exchange for two decades and among its 168 shareholders include the owners of the largest construction company, airline and group of real estate and financial investments in Peru: the Graña & Montero groups , Latam Peru and Wiese. By 2015, it had revenues of S / 1,472 million (US $ 432 million), almost as much as that received by some of the main mining companies in Peru; In addition, it concentrates 61% of total market revenues and owns subsidiaries in Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Colombia, linked to printing, online commerce, education and even children's amusement parks. El Comercio has 168 shareholders, among them appear the owners of the groups Graña & Montero, Latam Peru and WieseThe family group Miró Quesada, owner of nine of the more than 20 newspapers estimated in Lima, concentrates about 80% of the daily circulation in the capital and 74% on average at the national level. As for its approximate scope in the population,

El Comercio has 78% of the readership of the market and 65% of the estimated monthly web audience. It also dominates the television sector. With América Televisión, a channel he shares with the newspaper La República, he has 23% of the audience share; followed by Latina Televisión (16%) and ATV (11%), according to Kantar Ibope Media's annual average tuning of 2015. In recent years, the Miró Quesada family matrix -director of two television channels, nine newspapers and 15 digital media that reach several million people a day nationwide- became a client of Peruvian firms associated with Deloitte, KPMG, Pricewaterhouse and Ernest & Young, the largest auditors in the world; of rating agencies such as Fitch Rating and even the discredited law firm Mossack Fonseca, famous for the Panama Papers Case. Under the slogan "Independence and truthfulness", El Comercio's business model depends on advertising revenues of up to 60% (as daily) and 80% (as a group), as well as debts that currently reach S / 350 million with the main banks of the national financial system.

El Comercio - owner of América Televisión and Canal N, leaders in open signal and cable; from the popular newspaper Trome, the best-selling newspaper in Latin America; and elcomercio.pe, the most widely spread news website in the country- has managed to concentrate around 56% of revenues from the total sale of media advertising in 2015. However, the estimates skyrocket to 70%, 80% and up to 90% when it comes to advertising investment in specific items of television and cable, newspapers and magazines or internet. Revealing figures, if we consider that the total investment in this item reached S / 2,275 million (US $ 711 million) in 2015, according to the market research company CPI. Miró Quesada company -declared before the Judiciary by concentration of the income from the sale of newspapers and threaten the plurality of information after buying the rival company in 2013- dominates 61% of the total income of that market.

Much of the financing of El Comercio, ATV, Latina and some of the other five groups (RPP, La República, CRP Medios, Panamericana Televisión and Corporación Universal) comes from the contracts that have the sale of advertising space to the main companies of the sector of mass consumer goods and cleaning, supermarkets and department stores, banks and telephone operators.

A report by Kantar Ibope Media, obtained for this research, reveals that the biggest financiers of the media market that concentrate El Comercio, ATV and Latina are the Peruvian groups Credicorp (Alicorp and Banco de Crédito), Intercorp (Peruvian Supermarkets) and Gloria; the Chilean Falabella corporations (Tottus hypermarkets, Saga Falabella and Maestro Peru), Ripley, Cencosud and Entel; Spain's Telefónica, Mexico's América Móvil and Telepromos de Guatemala, as well as transnationals Procter & Gamble, Coca Cola and Nestlé, among others.

3 QUESTIONS (WITH YOUR ANSWERS) TO KNOW IF PEPE CHLIMPER IS IN PROBLEMS FOR HAVING BEEN DIRECTOR IN GRAÑA Y MONTERO

Last Wednesday, a team of prosecutors from the Public Prosecutor's Office, led by Hamilton Castro, announced the formalization of the preparatory investigation against the executives of the companies that participated via a consortium with Odebrecht in the tender of several works. It's about the construction companies:

Graña y Montero.

J.J. Camet.

ICCGSA.

The dawn of today, its directors were imprisoned because the judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho determined that there was risk of flight and declared the preventive prison for 18 months that Castro's team requested. This is the list of the prisoners: 📷Pepe Graña, Camet, Castillo and Hernando Graña. The Fantastic Four.

Image via: Lamula.pe

José Graña Miró Quesada, former president of GyM and shareholder of Grupo El Comercio.

Hernando Graña, former director of GyM.

Gonzalo Ferraro, ex-manager of Business Development of GyM. He was sentenced to house arrest because his defense argued that he had a malignant tumor in his neck that requires medical attention.

Fernando Camet, president of JJ Camet, the construction company that he inherited from his father, the former Minister of Economy during the autocracy of Alberto Fujimori, Jorge Camet. The latter was also imprisoned after the fall of the Fujimorist regime, although they released him within a few weeks. The trial against him went on for many years. His company was covered with hundreds of millions of dollars during the Fujimori. Finally he was convicted and the sentence was later annulled. He died in 2013. His son continued with his legacy.

Fernando Castillo, executive president of ICCGSA.

1. Why were they arrested?

The preventive prisons are dictated to avoid the escape of the investigated. For this part of the story we have consulted with the lawyer and journalist Andrés Calderón, who is also a professor at the Universidad del Pacífico. The Office of the Prosecutor has presented two facts that are powerful to continue the investigation but still insufficient to seek a conviction:

The statement by the former Odebrecht representative in Peru, Jorge Barata, and

The minutes where it is approved to transfer part of the profits of the companies to Odebrecht under the concept of "additional risks".

via GIPHY The prestigious Semana Económica magazine published today an editorial talking precisely about the "additional risks" and all the suspicions that weigh on that concept was nothing more than the chaplín that they put to the bribe. The latter is the Prosecutor's hypothesis.

"The truth is that for a transfer of this type does not raise suspicions of corruption would have to be supported by a detailed inventory of the" additional risks "to be compensated, with details of their respective costs.

2. But what is that of "additional risks"?

What happens is that the three construction companies that participated via a consortium with Odebrecht in several public works transferred a total of 41 million soles of their profits to the Brazilian company. The Prosecutor's Office investigates on the basis that this money was to pay for the cousin of former President Alejandro Toledo and thus be awarded the Interoceanic Highway tender. However, as it is a transaction of millions of soles, Semana Económica indicates that the companies They should detail what these risks consist of and how much each one costs.

"Neither the companies nor the (ex) executives investigated have made public such inventory, and the arrest warrant of the Public Ministry suggests either that it either does not exist or is not convincing. Even beyond the criminal implications, that information would have to be known to fulfill even the fiduciary duties of any company towards its shareholders ".

In the midst of all this mess of documents and incarcerations jumps something that nobody should stop asking:

3. And the other Pepe? Pepe Chlimper

📷Pepe the live and the other Pepe.

Image: Utero.PeAccording to his resume available on the website of the National Jury of Elections (JNE), the former vice-presidential candidate with Fujimorismo and current director of the Reserve Bank of Peru (BCR), José Chlimper, was director of Graña and Montero between 2006 and 2015. The central work of the Office will be to denounce those who approved the payment of bribes and those executives who have knowledge of these facts. According to Andrés Calderón:

"I understand that by the level of the decision, this was surely approved by the Board and not only by management. And what the Prosecutor's Office presumes is that the CEOs (presidents of the board) knew and approved. "

To know how the company was organized to allocate money for coimeros purposes under the name of "additional risks", Calderón indicates that prosecutors will require effective collaborators from within the organization because the testimony of Barata does not reach that level of detail.

"The Prosecutor's Office could now proceed with surprise inspections to the offices of the companies and go through the managers and those who participated in the approval of the payments. That is, if they want to be coherent and build their case well. If not, it was more show. "

Only at this stage of the investigations will it be possible to know if Pepe "freelance editor" Chlimper was aware of the bribes. For now it is safe. For now.

Criminal proceedings against Secretary General of Fuerza Popular,

José Chlimper, open For the crime against the public faith in the use of fake private document Against the general secretary of Fuerza Popular, José Chlimper Ackerman

The Second Liquidating Criminal Chamber of Lima opened a criminal investigation against the Secretary General of Fuerza Popular, José Chlimper Ackerman, the former director of Panamericana Televisión, Pedro Arbulú Seminario, and the producer of the program Things as they are, David Barturen Álvarez. This document of the end of August of this year, which recently comes to light, imputes to the three characters as co-authors of the crime against the public faith in the modality of use of false private document. The criminal case is for the rude editing of an audio presented in May 2016 in this television program. Faced with evidence of manipulation, the journalistic space was canceled. This is the route of that malicious edition, according to the tenth point of the judicial resolution ordering the opening of this criminal case. "It is noted that there was a telephone conversation between the aggrieved Francisco Vásquez and Fernando Palomino. The audio of said telephone conversation was sent by Jaime Verástegui from the United States to the denounced Chlimper Akerman through two emails. José Chilmper recorded the audio on a USB Kingston brand that he delivered to his co-defendant Pedro Arbulú Seminario and he gave it to the general producer of the program Como Como, his co-defendant David Barturen Álvarez, "narrates the document . Then, says the document, Barturen would have recorded another, clearer audio of that conversation on an HP-branded USB. For the opening of this criminal case "the existence of sufficient evidence of the commission of an offense is required and not of the reliable proof of the responsibility of those denounced in the facts." This whole story was revealed to Cuarto Poder by journalist Mayra Albán, who worked in that television space and dared to deliver the complete audio, emails and other documents that served to elaborate this pseudo scoop. América Noticias tried to collect the version of Chlimper, Arbulú and Barturen. None wanted to comment for this report.