>Elite lawyer

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One of Chile’s most influential lawyers has been indicted on bribery, money laundering and tax fraud charges in a case that has shaken the country’s establishment and threatens to ensnare several of its major institutions.

A judge on Tuesday ordered Luis Hermosilla, a criminal lawyer with close ties to prominent business leaders and senior politicians across Chile’s political spectrum, to be detained in custody pending trial, after a five-day hearing in Santiago.

Hermosilla has denied all charges. The investigation began last November when investigative news site Ciper Chile published an audio recording of him and a client discussing illicit payments to officials at Chile’s tax authority and financial regulator. “We are doing a thing here that is a crime,” he is heard saying. 

Hermosilla’s brother Juan Pablo, who is representing him in the case, told reporters earlier this month: “One can say things, but one has to answer for what one does. What he said is very wrong. The thesis of our defence is that he did not do things.”

At the hearing on Monday he added that the case concerned a “commercial and financial operation” by his brother’s clients “that had been set in motion” before he began working for them.

Analysts said the growing scandal risks damaging Chile’s image as a relative haven from corruption in Latin America. It is ranked as the region’s second-least corrupt country, behind Uruguay, by Transparency International in its 2023 corruption perceptions index.

“The case suggests Chile’s best-connected people are improperly trafficking influences,” said Patricio Navia, a Chilean political analyst and professor at New York University. 

“Foreign companies are looking at this and thinking ‘the playing field is not as level as we thought: if you want to do business in Chile maybe you need to be contracting lawyers with political connections’,” he added.

Hermosilla is a close friend and former adviser to Andrés Chadwick, who served as interior minister under former rightwing president Sebastián Piñera. Last year, before the allegations emerged, Hermosilla also represented Miguel Crispi, a top adviser to current leftist president Gabriel Boric.

Chile’s justice minister Luis Cordero said in March that the seizure of Hermosilla’s phone as part of the investigation “could be a pandora’s box” for prosecutors.

The seizure has already led to the resignation of the head of Chile’s investigative police force, Sergio Muñoz, after prosecutors said they had found phone messages in which he repeatedly shared confidential information with Hermosilla. Muñoz admitted leaking information at a hearing in March, though his lawyer said “no investigations had been harmed” as a result.   

The audio of Hermosilla published by Ciper was recorded in June 2023 at a meeting between the lawyer and his former client Daniel Sauer, who was at the time under investigation by Chile’s financial regulator on suspicion of fraud involving his brokerage firm.

Sauer was detained in custody in April pending his trial in that case. He has denied the fraud charges.

The meeting was recorded by lawyer Leonarda Villalobos, an adviser to Sauer and former government official, who was present. She and her husband, Luis Angulo, were charged with money laundering and tax offences on Tuesday, while Villalobos was also charged with bribery. They have denied the charges.

Two officials at Chile’s tax authority and Treasury were also indicted on bribery charges after prosecutors found they received payments from Villalobos.

Villalobos has denied bribing the officials, telling authorities she paid them for legitimate consulting services.