Inquiry launched in Peru after alleged prostitution ring uncovered in Congress

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/19/peru-sex-for-votes-scandal

Version 0 of 1.

Prosecutors look into sex-for-votes scandal after killing of Congress lawyer leads to investigation of her former boss

Prosecutors in Peru are investigating a sex-for-votes scandal in the country’s Congress after uncovering an alleged prostitution ring inside the widely-loathed chamber.

The investigation began after hired killers fired more than 40 rounds into a taxi carrying Andrea Vidal, a 27-year-old lawyer who worked in Congress, earlier this month in Lima. She died of her injuries in an intensive care ward on Tuesday. The taxi driver was also killed in the attack.

The public prosecutor’s office subsequently opened an investigation into Vidal’s former boss, Congress’s former lead legal and constitutional adviser, Jorge Torres Saravia, who is accused of sexual exploitation for allegedly running a prostitution ring that hired young women to have sex with lawmakers in exchange for votes. Torres has denied any wrongdoing.

This latest scandal comes as trust and approval for the country’s Congress and its president, Dina Boluarte, have plummeted to levels never before reached, and a crime wave of racketeering and hired killing sweeps the Andean nation.

Prosecutors allege that on Torres’s behalf, Vidal hired young women to work as secretaries and in administrative jobs with different political blocs inside the chamber.

“She would have operated to get votes from parliamentarians,” said Juan Burgos, lawmaker and president of the Congress’s oversight commission.

“This clearly marks the end of any shame in the administrative exercise of power,” said Susel Paredes, an independent lawmaker. “It shows the rot inside the political parties that today have the power to hire staff in Congress.”

She said the main parties had gained “absolute power and part of the power-sharing also involves the sharing of jobs in this institution”.

Alvaro Henzler, who leads Transparencia, a Peruvian pro-democracy NGO, said recent years has seen “an accelerated loss of the minimum ethical and moral standards that any public official in authority should have”.

“Our politicians, both Congress and president, have reached their lowest approval ratings in history,” he said.

He accused lawmakers of passing laws that erode democratic standards and encourage organized crime to protect themselves and their peers from corruption investigations.

“That reflects the sorry state of our democracy,” Henzler said.

Boluarte – whose approval rating reached a record low of 3% according to a poll this month – is being investigated for alleged illicit enrichment after a raid on her home in April amid allegations swirling around her collection of Rolex watches and luxury jewellery. She has denied any wrongdoing.