SANTIAGO, Chile, Oct. 2 (UPI) -- A Peruvian judge has issued an arrest warrant for three top executives of the Chilean-owned Lucchetti pasta company for alleged influence peddling.
Alejandro Luksic, Lucchetti's major shareholder and one of three sons of the leading Chilean entreprenour Andronico Luksic, and directors Gonzalo Menendez and Fernando Pacheco are facing charges that they paid $3 million to Vladimiro Montesinos, the former head of Peru's secret service.
The warrant claims the men paid Montesinos to help the company build a pasta factory in Lima, Peru, in a specially protected nature reserve in the city.
Judge Jorge Barreto issued the order Monday after the executives failed to respond to inquiries into the case. In addition to the arrest warrant, Barreto froze the businessmen's assets in Peru.
The judge said he would submit the arrest order to Interpol once all three executives are located.
Chile's Foreign Relations Minister Soledad Alvear said Tuesday that her government would leave the case to the Peruvian justice system and not intervene diplomatically, but did indicate she hoped the case would proceed in a proper manner through the courts.
"Chilean investors in any part of the world have to be certain that they can carry out their investments properly," Alvear said. "This is especially true with Peru, as we have signed an accord that specifically aims to protect investments."
Claudio Huepe, Chile's secretary general, said Tuesday that he couldn't comment specifically on the arrest order, but that he had been assured that Peru's judicial system would act in an independent manner.
"All governments must give guarantees to foreign investors" to maintain an incorruptible legal system, he said. Huepe went on to note that at the recent Rio Group Summit in Santiago, Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo assured Chilean authorities that his country's courts would act independent of any political or business pressures.
The defendants' have not yet responded to news of the order, although local media suggest that company executives may have to curtail future international travel because of the international arrest order.
Investigations against the Lucchetti executives started after a number of videos - the so called "Vladivideos" - were released in March showing conversations between Luksic and Menendez with Montesinos.
The "Vladivideos" also showed Montesinos bribing a Peruvian congressman and sparked a scandal that led to the resignation of then President Alberto Fujimori and the subsequent manhunt and arrest of Montesinos. Fujimori went into self-exile in Japan.
Montesinos is now imprisoned on a military base near Lima and is facing trial on 50 charges of corruption and human rights violations.
In August, Lima's city council revoked the pasta factory's license and ordered the company to close the plant within a year. Lucchetti had been Peru's leading pasta maker, with an approximately 25 percent market share.
