LatinNews Daily - 28 July 2025

*Peru’s attorney general’s office has submitted a constitutional complaint to congress accusing former president Pedro Castillo (2021-2022), 24 legislators, and three former ministers in Castillo’s administration, of corruption offences. They are variously accused of the crimes of criminal organisation, influence peddling, bribery, and collusion. According to a statement from the attorney general’s office, Castillo is accused of leading an alleged criminal organisation comprising the legislators and ministers “with the aim of negotiating congressional votes” and in return rigging tenders and public contracts in the ministries of transport and communications; housing, construction and sanitation; and production, as well as in decentralised public bodies such as the migration superintendency, the national police, and the national port company. The former ministers accused of wrongdoing are former transport and communications minister Juan Francisco Silva (2021-2022), former production minister Jorge Luis Prado (2021-2022), and former labour minister Betssy Chávez (2021-2022), who went on to serve as prime minister in the final month before Castillo was impeached and arrested in December 2022. Of the 24 legislators named in the constitutional complaint, 15 were affiliated with the centrist Acción Popular (AP), whose support in congress was vital for the Castillo administration. The other nine legislators were affiliated with the far-left Perú Libre (PL) with which Castillo was elected and the Bloque Magisterial (BM), which was created after a more moderate faction of the PL broke away from the party.

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