Overview
- Investigators executing a court-ordered search at Santiago Peña’s San Bernardino residence discovered a concealed vault behind a false wall that they could not open during the initial raid on Sunday.
- The vault is reported to require multiple validations—facial or iris recognition, fingerprint, a PIN and multilock keys—so prosecutors plan to return with specialists and are weighing options to gain access without damaging potential evidence.
- Peña remains in preventive detention at the Regimiento Escolta Presidencial after his rapid congressional removal, and prosecutors seized an iPhone from him as part of parallel evidence-gathering steps.
- The Fiscalía’s formal imputations link Peña and former officials to operations tied to Ueno Bank and estimate a patrimonial prejudice of more than US$809 million, with records showing two loans from Ueno Bank to Peña on 13 May 2024 to finance the mansion.
- The vault search is likely to shape the criminal case and public fallout: if opened it could yield documents or assets tied to alleged irregular placements of public and pension funds, and the unfolding probe is already driving government changes and steps to restore depositors’ funds.