An alleged criminal structure would have operated in the electricity sector during the Governments of Rafael Correa, Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso. This is what is known as the Encuentro case.
CNEL workers carry out work on the electrical energy network, in May 2019.
When the Prosecutor’s Office carried out the first eight raids for the corruption plot in the electricity sector, on January 20, 2023, it named the case Encuentro. In those days, Guillermo Lasso’s administration used “The Government of the Meeting” as its slogan.
The relationship between names is due to the fact that suspicions pointed to Lasso officials, such as Hernán Luque, former president of the Public Companies Coordinating Company (EMCO); and characters close to the President, such as Danilo Carrera.
For this reason, the same day that the Prosecutor’s Office began to use that name, the official communication stopped using that slogan and simply changed it to National Government, which remains until this moment.
“It seems like nonsense to me. I don’t want to qualify any person, any institution. But it is a mistake that reveals the political intention of causing harm to my Government,” Lasso said two days after those raids regarding the name of the case.
10 months after these proceedings, the Prosecutor’s Office announced that it will file charges of organized crime against seven people in the Encuentro case. Among those investigated are, precisely, Luque and Carrera.
The ‘Meeting’ of corruption
Although the name of the corruption case and the Government’s previous slogan are the same, the Prosecutor’s Office assures that this is nothing more than a coincidence.
A source in the Prosecutor’s Office revealed to PRIMICIAS that the name Caso Encuentro has another intention.
According to the first indications collected in the previous investigation that opened in January 2023, the name was chosen because this corruption plot would be the meeting point of the last three governments of Rafael Correa, Lenín Moreno and Guillermo Lasso.
Although the Prosecutor’s Office has not yet revealed the details of the theory of the case that it will present at the charging hearing, it is known that the alleged organized crime took place in the Ecuadorian electricity sector.
An alleged criminal structure would have operated in the National Electricity Corporation (CNEL) and the Electricity Corporation of Ecuador (Celec), companies that are responsible for the distribution and generation of electrical energy, respectively.
Presumably, this structure would have operated in the governments of Correa, Moreno and Lasso to direct contracts to companies of its operators. Furthermore, in the midst of these negotiations, bribes and illicit profits were allegedly distributed .
Leonardo Cortázar, in the center of the plot
The now called Encuentro case originated in a series of leaks and audio publications by the digital media La Posta.
One of the first audios released was attributed to Leonardo Cortázar, a businessman and politician from Guayaquil.
Although until then Cortázar had maintained a low profile, he had already had links with several political organizations linked to the Bucaram family, former President Moreno and Correismo .
He even created an organization called ADN. The same name as the group now led by President-elect Daniel Noboa and seeking to register with the CNE.
“I was in Moreno’s and Rafael Correa’s, I stay (in the Lasso Government) because the man does not trust the man’s people,” Cortazar said in a conversation that was leaked. Thus, Cortázar recounted what his time at electric companies had been like.
He would have started with a minor role in Correismo, to establish himself in the Moreno government. At this time he became one of the top leaders of Libertad es Pueblo, an organization run by Gary Moreno, a relative of the former president.
In 2021, on the eve of the change of Government, Cortázar aligned himself with the Correísta proposal. With the ADN movement he supported the duo of Andrés Arauz and Carlos Rabascall. He was seen at several campaign events. Rabascall even publicly thanked his organization.
At the time, Arauz responded that ADN was an organization of Guayaquil professionals who supported his candidacy, but not that they did not contribute to it. Furthermore, he described Cortazar as an unknown.
That was not the only connection with Correismo. In another of the excerpts of the leaked audio, Cortázar located Ronnie Aleaga, a former Correísta legislator, as his operator.
Despite the support for the opposite pole, after Lasso’s electoral victory, Cortázar would have maintained his influence in the electricity sector.
As revealed in the leaked audios, his entry point would have been César Monge, who was Lasso’s right-hand man, but died in the first months of his Government.
“Monge enters CNEL. He sees me there. He tells me, fat man, stay. The man wanted me to stay sitting there as if on assignment, as an advisor to the manager,” Cortázar said. That manager would have been Antonio Icaza, another of those who will be prosecuted in the Encuentro case.
