Peru Seeks U.S. Data in BCCI Case
Peru will ask a New York prosecutor for evidence to back up allegations that two former Peru central bank officials received bribes from the scandal-plagued Bank of Credit & Commerce International, a top justice official said Friday.
Visiting Peruvian Atty. Gen. Pedro Mendez Jurado told journalists that he will seek documents next week from the office of Manhattan Dist. Atty. Robert Morgenthau.
Morgenthau said in July that BCCI officials had given former Peru central bank governor Lionel Figueroa and former general manager Hector Neyra $3 million for depositing $270 million in reserves with BCCI.
Morgenthau charged that the move was part of a scheme to keep BCCI, immersed in a worldwide fraud scandal, afloat.
The New York indictment charging BCCI and its founders with fraud did not mention Figueroa or Neyra by name, blocking legal action in Peru, Mendez Jurado said.
“It is necessary that a person be individualized (named) for us (in Peru) to denounce him,” he said.
Both Figueroa and Neyra have ignored summonses by Peru’s Congress, which is investigating them and former President Alan Garcia, in whose term the alleged bribes took place.
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