The Los Andes Guarantee Court will formally charge Rinconada Mayor Juan Galdames on May 26 with fraud against the Treasury, incompatible negotiation, and the forgery of public documents.
The indictment follows a legal investigation into the purchase of three land plots that allegedly involved price markups of up to 3,000%.
Prosecutors allege the transactions included meetings held outside the scope of the Lobby Law and the use of falsified documents to inflate property values.
The Comptroller General has filed a lawsuit regarding the case, citing patrimonial damage exceeding 1.3 billion pesos.
Allegations of Inflated Valuations
The transactions involved land owned by an associate of the mayor. The State Defense Council has also filed a criminal complaint, accusing Galdames of creating inflated appraisals to facilitate the purchases.
The investigation focuses on how the municipality acquired the properties. Prosecutors claim the administration used forged instruments to justify the massive discrepancy between the original value and the final purchase price.
The scale of the financial loss has prompted intense scrutiny from national oversight bodies. The Comptroller General's claim of 1.3 billion pesos in damages rests on the discrepancy between market rates and the municipal payments.
Former councilman Juan Castillo, who is a complainant in the case, said he and other officials attempted to stop the deal before it was finalized.
“We realized that these negotiations, these land purchases, could constitute a crime, therefore, we told the mayor in the first instance not to do it, and that if he did, we would report him accordingly,” Castillo said.
“The mayor did not listen to us, he finalized the acts, there were transfers of much money,” he added.
The defense maintains that the criminal charges lack legal merit.
Defense attorney José Villagrán argued that the allegations are based on administrative decisions that have been misinterpreted as crimes.
Villagrán stated that his client has provided significant evidence to the Prosecutor's Office to support these arguments.
The hearing at the Los Andes court will proceed as scheduled on May 26.
