Come August 6, Chile’s Prosecutor’s Office of High Complexity Offenses will formerly charge two slot industry executives with corruption for illegally financing political campaigns.
Isaac Latorre Ascuí and Alberto Antonio Hadad Abuhadba are former directors of the Association of Operators, Manufacturers and Importers of Electronic Entertainment (FIDEN). They allegedly financed the failed 2017 campaign of Nelson Hadad Heresy, who ran for deputy in Santiago’s Metropolitan Region.
Abuhadba’s lawyer, Mario Vargas, said his client “testified in the prosecutor’s office and it was established that there was no offense related to an infraction of the electoral financing law. All the records show that there is no crime. This investigation, from the beginning, has distorted the facts that are being investigated; remember that a prosecutor in the case was removed. The facts investigated have caused huge damage to the entertainment industry; we regret that my client has been charged with the damage that causes. We insist that this charge has been managed from the beginning by casino owners, who want to maintain a monopoly and penalize entertainment in Chile.”
Police wiretapped the conversations of the FIDEN leaders for six months in 2017. According to reports, the tapes indicated that payments may have been made by slot operators to government officials in return for municipal gaming machine licenses. FIDEN denies the claims.
