|  ElCiudadano.cl |  Noticias

El Ciudadano

Original article: El blindaje que la Derecha defiende: $78 mil millones lavados y el Tren de Aragua en el paraíso financiero chileno

By Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

A recent Plaza Pública Cadem survey, released on December 6, reveals a striking statistic: 83% of Chileans support lifting banking secrecy without prior judicial authorization in cases related to money laundering, drug trafficking, and organized crime. An additional 74% believes authorities should have quicker access to suspicious banking information.

The public’s message is clear: enough with bureaucratic constraints when drug money cross borders in mere hours. However, the opposite occurred in the Senate last week, where a tie vote of 24-24 led to the rejection of the proposal. The block impeders were the usual suspects: various factions of the right.

The administration of José Antonio Kast – from the far right – and center-right parties (UDI, RN, Evópoli, and the National Liberty Party) voted against the measure twice. Their reasoning: to protect privacy rights and uphold judicial oversight on accessing financial data. Yet, in light of the findings from the so-called «Operation Tokyo,» this position seems, at best, out of touch with common sense.

While right-wing senators defended banking secrecy as if it were sacred, the Metropolitan South Prosecutor’s Office disclosed that the Aragua Train transferred over 78 billion pesos through the Chilean financial system. Less than 1% of that money has been recovered. It all left the country. Meanwhile, the primary tool for tracking it – the swift lifting of banking secrecy – remains a distant dream.

It would be unfair, however, not to acknowledge that the protection of banking secrecy is not solely the domain of the current right-wing. Here lies a historical irony: the Concertación governments – Aylwin, Frei, Lagos, Bachelet – also failed to enact its abolition. They attempted it, sometimes with timid projects or proposals, but always ended up crashing against the banking power, financial oligarchy, and the same economic groups that forged the neoliberal model during the dictatorship.

The weight of that structure proved to be heavier than any promise of transparency. Even Gabriel Boric’s government, with its foundational rhetoric, only introduced an initiative in 2023, spurred by the Hermosilla case and revelations regarding the Aragua Train. The result is that today, 36 years after its legal establishment, Chile’s banking secrecy remains intact. And organized crime knows it.

The Aragua Train case starkly illustrates this obsolescence. The organization not only used traditional bank accounts but also created its own cryptocurrency platform, **Plusspay**, a fintech based in Providencia, authorized by the Financial Market Commission (CMF), which allowed conversions from Chilean pesos to digital dollars (USDT, USDC) and facilitated transactions to any virtual wallet worldwide.

The firm belonged to Venezuelan engineer José Manuel Ríos Guaidó, who is currently a fugitive, likely in Venezuela or Colombia. The PDI raided his offices, but the owner had already vanished. The CMF, when approached by El Mostrador, did not even respond regarding whether an investigation was initiated. The message is grim: while organized crime innovates with cutting-edge financial technology, the Chilean state remains shackled by a regulation conceived in a paper world, with checks and transfers that took days.

French sociologist Pierre Lascoumes’ thesis helps explain why, despite the Concertación and left’s failed attempts, Kast’s right today refuses to yield.

Lascoumes posits that elite corruption is not a pathological exception but a structural phenomenon in systems where ruling groups have managed to distort formal control mechanisms, replacing them with opaque corporate self-regulation.

In Chile, this diagnosis fits perfectly: the Supreme Court concentrates functions of government, management, discipline, and appointments, creating a system of exceptions in its favor. Banking secrecy is the revolving door of this circuit: it protects the financial flows of those in a position to request judicial favors.

The cases of Hermosilla, Vivanco, Letelier, and Ulloa are not accidents; they are manifestations of a structure that has normalized certain transgressions to preserve power and the internal cohesion of the group. Does anyone believe that the 78 billion from the Aragua Train would have crossed so freely without collusion in the banking sector, the CMF, and perhaps higher?

And what is Kast’s government doing in response? They announced they will continue to insist on requiring judicial authorization, although they propose to expedite timelines for information delivery. A half-measure that, according to specialized prosecutors in asset laundering, does not resolve the core issue: by the time a judicial order is requested, the money has already flown away.

The Cadem survey, however, shows that the public is not naive. A remarkable 94% of respondents believe there should be criminal penalties for officials who misuse obtained information, and 56% think Congress should oversee the use of this authority. People are willing to cede part of their privacy, but with checks in place. This nuance disappears in the right’s discourse, which prefers polarization: either complete secrecy or state abuse.

The contrast between public demand and political response is vast. While 97% of Chileans view organized crime as a severe problem and 95% think it has increased over the last five years, the Senate is bogged down in a mixed commission. The project, which was introduced to Congress in May 2023, passed the Chamber of Deputies but now must be unraveled by a mixed instance.

The outlook is uncertain: the right has the votes needed to continue blocking. And Kast’s government, which came into power promising a tough stance on crime, shows its other face: an iron fist against the poor, but a soft touch towards the financial protections shielding the powerful.

The final irony, the most profound of all, is summarized by the same Cadem survey. Fifty-seven percent of Chileans believe that the weakness of the judicial system is the main cause of the rise of organized crime. Thirty-eight percent point to institutional corruption. And only 42% trust the Prosecutor’s Office.

The public is not naive: they understand that lifting banking secrecy is not a silver bullet, but they demand a tool that exists in any serious country – the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Colombia. In Chile, however, that instrument remains shackled. The Concertación could not liberate it; Boric either did not prioritize it or chose not to; and Kast’s right, now in power, defends it fiercely. Meanwhile, the Aragua Train continues to operate freely. And the money, happily crossing borders.

While politics debates, drug money has long found its own paradise: it’s called Chilean banking secrecy.

Leopoldo Lavín Mujica

La entrada Chile’s Banking Secrecy Under Fire: $78 Billion Laundered and the Aragua Train in Financial Paradise se publicó primero en El Ciudadano.