“The support of the Chancellor Mr. Andrés Allamand is required for the Candidacy of the general director of the PDI, Mr. Sergio Muñoz Yáñez, for the vacancy of ‘Member for the Americas, on the INTERPOL Executive Committee’. This election will take place next November, at the 89th General Assembly of the Organization.”
This was the message that was forwarded, on August 24, 2021, by the former director of the PDI, Sergio Muñoz, to lawyer Luis Hermosilla. The text was one more in a series of conversations between the two, extracted from Hermosilla’s cell phone, after an investigation was initiated against him for the crime of bribery, which arose after the publication of a recording in which he was heard speaking with the businessman. Daniel Sauer and the lawyer Leonarda Villalobos, to make the payment of bribes in the Internal Revenue Service (SII).
In that investigation, the lawyer’s cell phone was seized, which was examined by the prosecutors in charge of the case, detecting 510 conversations with Muñoz, who at that time was the head of the PDI. The messages ranged from greetings in friendly terms to the delivery of information regarding judicial cases that the police were investigating.
Muñoz was charged with the crime of violation of secrecy, spending almost a month in preventive detention for providing information on cases in which the misuse of reserved expenses by the former director of the PDI was being investigated. Hector Espinosa; Enjoy, Felipe Guevara, Raúl Torrealba and Dominga.
And it is in that message that the name of Andrés Allamand (chancellor between 2020 and 2022), who was asked to manage Muñoz’s candidacy for the position sought on the Interpol Executive Committee. For this reason, his name is relevant to the Prosecutor’s Office today.
After Muñoz forwarded him the messages about what was needed to apply for the position, Hermosilla told him: “I’m already in contact. I will let you know the evolution.” Only minutes later he added: “Andrés Allamand is going to call you.” In the same chat, he shared the contact of the former chancellor, maintaining that “it should be from this phone.”
They both managed to communicate and after that, on September 3, 2019, Muñoz told Hermosilla: “Luis, I forgot to tell you that the chancellor only spoke wonderful things about you and gave me his full support.”
From this this management of Allamand – which did not reach port, since the former head of the POI did not obtain the position he was looking for – the Prosecutor’s Office seeks to obtain his version of those efforts, what he discussed with Muñoz and also to know Hermosilla’s role in that. For this reason, it was decided to summon him to testify, as a witness, before the investigators of the case.
However, as the former foreign minister lives outside Chile, he has not been able to be personally notified of the summons. That is why these days an email could be sent to him to schedule a day and time for his statement, through Zoom or another platform for video calls.
Another research focus of the Prosecutor’s Office is to know Muñoz’s patrimonial history, as well as who were the ones who sent him the information that he later sent to Hermosilla.
Thus, through a letter sent by prosecutor Francisco Lanas to OS-7 of Carabineros, the police were asked to “carry out a patrimonial survey of the accused Sergio Muñoz Yáñez and his close family circle.” In parallel, the former head of the PDI decided to open his bank accounts, so his financial records were sent to the Public Ministry.
Furthermore, in the document signed by prosecutor Lanas, Carabineros was asked “individualize senders of the messages subsequently forwarded by the accused Sergio Muñoz Yáñez.”
