Using false contracts and a tinglado that included a company created AD-HOC to provide services to the Municipal Corporation, a Las Condes official and its nearby network made fraud for more than $ 200 million.
This is stated in a recent criminal complaint entered by the municipal entity, in which he accuses Natalia Fernández Oyarce, then head of human resources for more than 10 years, not only to “hire” his mother and one of his cousins in a local vaccination, without ever providing the services committed. Also, with the help of his partner, Eddy Symmes, director of Administration and Finance, made the Corporation sign a food agreement for $ 190 million, which also benefited the mother of the Head of Human Resources.
To hide his actions, Fernández prepared false work reports for his mother and his cousin and omitted information on the Corporation Transparency Portal, the libel details.
His burning was only exposed last November when, given a request for public information, he had to inform a legal advisor about his mother’s contract in the vaccination.
False services in vaccination
Head of Human Resources since 2013, Natalia Fernández Oyarce had survived three administrations of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) when on November 18 the legal advisor of the Corporation, Pablo Peribonio, asked him to gather the documents required in a application for transparency.
What seemed like a simple requirement, actually had a background that Peribonium ignored. The document asked to send an official’s contracts, Isolda Oyarce, with the municipality.
It was Fernández’s mother, who had supposedly been hired as a pavilion supervisor in the Apoquindo vaccination in 2023, despite not having medical training.
It had even been Natalia Fernández who had instructed an official not to contribute the vaccination forms of the portal vaccination, so that the mess was not exposed, the complaint details.
Fernández confessed to Peribonium that Oyarce was his mother. A week later, the Head of Human Resources was forced to resign. For his work, which he never did, The Las Condes Education and Health Corporation paid, between April and July 2023, $ 9,495,300 from the tax coffers.
“Bioestadistics” reports
In the internal investigation, it was revealed that Fernández had grossly undercover his actions, after in May 2023 David Cáceres, in charge of the Apoquindo vaccination, found out through an administrative administrative of the payments to Isolda Oyarce.
Beclected, since he did not know her, he consulted his boss, Natalia Fernández, who told her that Oyarce provided services directly to the corporation. The official assured her that she made “bioestadic reports.”
To justify the work of Isolda Oyarce, four reports were presented in total. According to the complaint, these correspond to “a generic description of the functions of the Apoquindo vaccination, the immunization plan followed, the indication of the number of immunized patients and the type of vaccines used; all on a single page”.
All this, “without incorporating a deeper analysis that could justify the service of ‘bioestadistics’ that Isolda Oyarce supposedly provided,” fustiga the municipality in its libel.
False reports
The internal investigation revealed that fees of fees for $ 4,224,000 in the name of Macarena Oyarce Chia, cousin of Natalia Fernández, had also been paid.
On paper, she provided vaccination services, something that – at the trial of the municipality – was impossible: on the same date, according to her own linkdin, Oyarce was working as a barista in Ireland.
With exactly the same reports that the work of Fernández’s mother had been supported, the payment to this last alleged official was justified, according to the accusation of the corporation.
Contacted by BBCL investigates, Oyarce Chia commented that he had no participation in the facts: “At the time when I did not live in Chile (I left in 2022)”he just said.
The 190 million contract
There are more. On March 1, 2024, a contract between the Corporation and the Marketing and Distributor Sociedad Arayán Spa was concluded. It was a simple food contract, which established payments for breakfast, lunches and collations of the general Blanche, Patricia and Padre Hurtado gardens.
However, that contract was part of a scheme. The firm in question not only did not have experience at the time the agreement was signed: The company did not even exist. Its legal constitution just occurred on March 6 of that year. That is, five days after reaching the agreement.
According to Libel, the owner, Solange Santos Vásquez, turned out to be a friend of Natalia Fernández, the then head of Human Resources and couple of Eddy Symmes, director of finance and administration of the corporation. The latter was the one who visited the contract in question.
In six months, between April and October, the Corporation canceled $ 189,965,610 to the company. The scheme, however, would not have had the purpose of favoring Santos, but would correspond to a “testaferro.” The idea was Create a facade so that, in practice, it was Natalia Fernández’s mother, Isolda Oyarce, who could provide food services at excessive prices.
Daughter supervising her mother
According to the complaint, it was Symmes himself who suggested to hire Arayán Spa to Ricardo Gutiérrez, general secretary of the Corporation. As he argued, that firm provided the service at the school attended by their children. Actually, Arayán did not exist until that moment and only then was constituted by Solange Santos.
The contract, whose preparation ordered symmes, It established $ 1,000 more VAT payments for each breakfast provided by the company, of $ 2,000 for lunches and $ 500 for the collations.
Although Santos was legally the owner, Isolda Oyarce appeared before the directors of the gardens as the owner, according to the complaint.
The control of compliance with the contract was in charge of his daughter, who sent the food delivery certificate to the directors, to return it signed. The complaint mentions it:
“Contrary to what was stipulated in the supply contract, the supervision of the execution of the benefits by Arayán fell to Natalia Fernández, which turned out to be essential to justify the excessive payment made to Isolda Oyarce for the services provided.”
Inflated prices
The almost $ 190 million paid for the services between March and October 2024 did not correspond to the amount or the quality of the service provided, according to the presentation.
In September 2024 a tender was opened to provide food to the three gardens. Arayán Spa made a first offer of $ 5,355,000 per week and a second of $ 4,284,000 per week.
The values contrast radically with what the corporation paid to the company between August and October, when it provided the service to the three establishments – among March and July only had provided it for General Blanche and Patricia.
Thus, between those months Arayán He charged $ 83 million, $ 28 million over the $ 45 million he would have received using the value that the same company offered In the last proposal.
Finally, the company that was awarded the contract, integral solutions emergenza Spa, presented a much lower gross offer, of $ 3,479,185 per week. For a whole year the firm agreed to receive $ 167 million, while Arayán Spa had obtained $ 190 million for eight months, of which in five they only provided services to two gardens.
For the rest, the quality of food would not have been the best. According to the complaint, the director of the General Blanche Garden sent several emails complaining about the service.
“There are mistakes and inaccuracies”
For these facts, on April 8, the Las Condes Municipal Corporation presented to the fourth guarantee court of Santiago the complaint for fraud to the treasury and incompatible negotiation of public official.
The BBCL investigation unit contacted Natalia Fernández, Rafael Urquieta, who said they were collecting background to demonstrate that “There are mistakes and inaccuracies” in the information delivered by its counterpart.
“At the moment, we have decided not to give statements that harm the good investigation,” said Urquieta.
Identically answered Solange Santos Vásquez after being contacted by this means.
Until the closing of this edition, no responses from Eddy Symmes and Isolda Oyarce had not been obtained.
