What happened?
On June 24, 2011, the Municipal Council of Maipú awarded KDM the bidding for the landfill for five years and a total cost of $10 billion.
But after the bidding, the company Proactiva filed a lawsuit for bribery and bribery against those responsible, which gave rise to the investigation of the Basura case. Proactiva presented as evidence three recordings in which allegedly an official of KDM and the councilman of the commune, Marcelo Torres Ferrari, agreed to accept the offer of that company. In addition, councilman Antonio Name accused KDM of having offered money to the council.
In March 2012, Marcelo Torres was formalized for an intra-family complaint, which caused his spouse to reveal that he met at his house with other councilmen of Maipú to benefit KDM in garbage bids. On the other hand, in October of that year, a new recording was released between the manager of KDM, Fernando León, and the person in charge of the monitoring committee of the western landfill of Maipú, Eduardo Medina, which revealed the lobbying strategy they were deploying.
Thus, it was revealed that KDM gave bribes to Maipú councilmen to favor them in the bids (including the former mayor, Christian Vittori, who was a councilman of the commune), and an investigation was initiated for money laundering, embezzlement, bribery, and bribes.
In fact, in April 2013, the State Defense Council (CDE) filed a lawsuit for bribery and bribery against councilman Torres and the general manager of KDM, José Miguel Gutiérrez Sastre, since the latter would have attended on several occasions the councilman’s house, being seen with backpacks, shoeboxes or packages with cash, which Torres then distributed to the other councilmen.
In 2015, the case was extended to Cerro Navia and its then mayor, Luis Plaza, since councilman Torres, in addition to being a councilman of Maipú, was municipal administrator of Cerro Navia, where contracts with KDM were also favored.
The PDI raided the municipalities of Maipú and Cerro Navia, as well as 23 other homes of those involved, including those of the mayors of both cities (Vittori and Plaza). Then, the CDE filed a complaint against both of them for alleged money laundering crimes, as well as 11 other people.
One of the defendants was councilman Antonio Name (who also had a complaint for KDM), who allegedly received $53 million from the company Proactiva to make arrangements in his favor in the 2011 bidding process.
In August 2015, 17 people were formalized, among them the mayors of Maipú and Cerro Navia, four councilmen, public officials, and businessmen, including Vittori’s wife and his father-in-law. The prosecution assured that seven of the accused belonged to an illicit association that was formed at least in 2009 and operated to date, the leader being Marcelo Torres.
In May 2016, a municipal official of Huechuraba acknowledged that from 2006 to 2013, he worked for KDM, even when he worked in the municipality, receiving a parallel salary. And that same year, a criminal investigation was initiated against the former mayor of Ñuñoa, Pedro Sabat, for fraud against the Treasury, illicit enrichment, and incompatible negotiation, for the garbage bids awarded to KDM Demarco, whose assistant manager at the time of the negotiation and renewal of the contract, was his brother.
In addition, in 2016, it became known that Omar Tordesillas, advisor to the MOP and former chief of staff of the mayor of Cerro Navia, Luis Plaza, received consecutive payments of $1 million for 34 months by KDM.
And in September of that year, the mayor of Colina, Mario Olavarría, and two other municipal officials was formalized for alleged tax fraud committed in 2010 in this case.
In April 2018, the Ninth Guarantee Court declared itself incompetent to hear seven of the eleven facts of the indictment filed by the Western Metropolitan Regional Prosecutor’s Office, specifically those occurring in the municipalities of Cerro Navia and Colina, and only maintained what concerns Maipú. Thus, finally, the Court of Appeals separated the garbage case into four different trials: each mayor would have a particular one.
And in August 2019, the Fifth Oral Criminal Court of Santiago assured that the former mayor Vittori received tens of millions of pesos in bribes, which he distributed with other councilors, confirming the sum of about $500 million in his bank account and that could not be justified during the financial analysis.
At the end of January 2020, the CDE filed a complaint for the crime of computer espionage before the Ninth Court of Guarantee of Santiago. The appeal is against whoever is responsible.
Convictions:
– Mayors Pedro Sabat and Mario Olavarría were acquitted of tax fraud and embezzlement of public funds.
– In 2017, Councilman Antonio Name was sentenced to 41 days of the remitted sentence and a fine of $27 million for bribery, after having received $53 million from the company ProActiva to make arrangements in his favor.
* Due to the pandemic, the Fifth Oral Court of Santiago announced the postponement of the oral trial. The Maipú case was resumed in October 2021, and the verdict was issued in March 2022:
– The former councilman Marcelo Torres Ferrari was convicted for the crimes of bribery and money laundering since it was accredited that KDM paid him $186,500 million, monies that were reinvested by the company in a company that participated in other tenders in the Municipality of Cerro Navia. At the time of the facts, Torres Ferrari also served as a municipal administrator in that municipality.
The sentence was pronounced in freedom as a result of all the time that Torres Ferrari was detained. In detail, 3 years and 1 day for money laundering, 300 days for bribery plus a fine of $130 million, and 7 years of disqualification from public office.
– The former mayor of Maipú Christian Vittori was acquitted along with six other defendants.
Vittori served as councilman between 2008 and 2012, and then as mayor between 2012 and 2016, and by a minority vote, the court gave as accredited the delivery of a van to the former authority by KDM, as retribution for the efforts made.
*After the “Maipú” case, the oral trial will continue with the events that occurred in Cerro Navia, estimating a total duration of this trial of four to six months.
*Several defendants obtained alternative exits, including councilmen and Fernando León (former manager of KDM).
