Legal representatives of former Opret Director Diandino Peña confirmed on Wednesday that their client will return to Pepca’s offices of the Specialized Public Prosecutor for Administrative Corruption (Pepca) as many times as is necessary.

This came after the questioning of the former official with the justice authorities ended minutes before five in the afternoon.

However, they did not specify when he would be interviewed again or whether Pepca would request his presence again.

Likewise, Peña refused to comment on the interrogation, as he did when he reached the Public Prosecution Office.

The former official arrived in Bebka before 4 pm, which is the date set for his interview with the persecuted party, and when reporters called him, he said he did not know the reason for his summons.

Accusation
Peña was summoned to appear before Pepca after filing a complaint against him in the middle of last month with the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PGR), in which he was accused of stealing more than 9.2 billion reais in Opret during his tenure at Opret, by several companies.

The complaint accuses Peña, his wife, other relatives and front men of alleged crime collection, fraud against the state, evasiveness and laundering of assets derived from corruption and other crimes punishable under the Dominican Criminal Code.

The “Sed de Justicia” complaint indicates that Peña, as director of Opret, used as a star 14 companies linked to his children, wife, son-in-law and close friends to win a large number of contracts for works in the construction of the Santo Domingo metro lines, in violation of various laws, including Law 340-06. Concerning public procurement and contracting, and the Public Administration Law.

According to the criminal complaint, the corruption scheme included class-to-class contracts, simulated purchases by comparing prices, and diversion of materials from the Santo Domingo metro for Diandino Peña and his associates to build the luxury shopping plaza Silver Sun.

Opret chapter
Also in May 2017, journalist Alicia Ortega published a report on the El Informe program, revealing data on the alleged undeclared wealth of engineer Peña.

During the interview, which caused great controversy in the country, Peña said, “I am not ready for this interview. I can bring my financial documents. I do not remember 45 years of professional work.”

“I can bring my team to provide clarifications, because he told my assistants that we will talk about my career, not about my company privacy,” the official added.

Four days after this investigation was presented in El Informe, engineer Diandino Peña was removed from his position as director of Opret on May 13, pursuant to Decree 168-17, issued by the then president Danilo Medina, and appointed instead Manuel Antonio Salita Garcia.

Chrono
2000
In 2000, with the arrival of the Hippolito Mejia government, Diandino Peña was one of those accused of embezzling more than 1,438 million Russian rubles from the government program Plan Eventual Minimo de Empleo (PEME), but was excluded from the case in 2007. OR.

2007
In April 2007, when Lionel Fernandez was President of the Republic again, the District Prosecutor’s Office withdrew the complaint in the PEME case, which was accepted by the Second Collegiate Court of the District Court of First Instance and declared Diandino’s acquittal. Peña and the other accused.