The Prosecutor's Office of Bolivia has issued an arrest warrant against the former Minister of Hydrocarbons and Energy Mauricio Medinaceli, removed from office last April, for alleged irregularities in the import and sale of fuel that would have been adulterated, within the case known as "garbage" gasoline.
The anti-corruption prosecutor David Torrez has ordered Medinaceli's arrest in a resolution dated this Monday, in which he states that there are "sufficient indications of his participation" in the crimes of "failure to comply with duties and anti-economic conduct."
The measure is adopted after a report from the special commission of the Chamber of Deputies of Bolivia pointed to the former minister, along with other high officials, as possibly responsible in the distribution chain of the deteriorated fuel.
The parliamentary document details that, during Medinaceli's tenure at the Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy, the commercialization of gasoline that was held by order of the National Hydrocarbons Agency (ANH), which had raised objections about its quality, would have been allowed.
According to data from Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB), more than 70,000 vehicles have been affected by this issue up to June, as reported by the Bolivian television network UNITEL.
In this context, the Bolivian government decided at the beginning of April to suspend the gasoline supply contracts signed with the raw material traders Vitol and Trafigura, after alleged problems in the quality of the fuel were detected and after a strike by public transport drivers in La Paz and El Alto due to the damage that the adulterated gasoline would have caused to their vehicles.
In mid-April, President Rodrigo Paz removed Medinaceli from his position, just hours after the resignation of the then president of YPFB, Claudia Cronenbold.