#Documental | Los Expedientes de la Tala

He hides his identity for fear of reprisals. He is a protected witness of the Public Ministry and warns that his life is in danger because his confession allowed to promote one of the investigations for organized crime in the Amazon, the largest of the last times.

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He is the prosecutor in charge of the investigation and it cost him to put his life in danger. He received calls in the morning, he received threatening calls in the morning, he received calls, you know, this... When he left the judicial power he received threats, death threats. In 2018, the witness revealed to the prosecutor that between 2012 and 2015

The organization set up, from the regional government of Ucayali, a system to title large masses of Amazon forest that ended up in power by two foreign capital companies that first plowed to plant palm oil and then asked for permission to regulate the plowing. A permission still pending. Things are upside down.

two large blocks of more than 5,000 hectares were dug, each one more than 10,000 hectares deforested according to the public ministry. The equivalent to the area of the Lime districts of Surco, San Borja, San Luis and La Molina together.

Then they planted in huge rectangular and perfect divisions palm oil plantations and started the most important agro-export business in this part of the country. Almost all, if not all, all the forests of the Ucayali region are being negotiated

by large companies illegally through fraudulent titling works. Ten years after the Tala and with other actors, the business is still booming, but with the environmental regulation still pending. In 2016, another company went on to control the business. Its current directors trust in obtaining the environmental license.

could be achieved thanks to a recently approved rule by the government of President Pedro Castillo, although the company does not believe that it will be benefited. If this were to happen, it would cause a possible collision between the Organized Crime Prosecutor's Office, which investigates the alleged environmental crimes, and the executive power, which would authorize the operation in the way of regularization. The State against the State. And sitting in the last place of the line,

the Amazon. December 2018, Cochahania case.

A judge in Ucayali declares a preventive prison against the main regional officials accused of arousing alleged land trafficking in favor of two foreign capital companies. The two characters are Isaac Guaman Pérez and Christopher Hernández Larrañaga. I order the entry of the accused, Christopher Poyle Hernández Larrañaga and Isaac Guaman Pérez, to the Central Penitentiary of Pujanta for the following: I am sorry to have served the state with so many of you.

Come on. Come on.

When the events occurred, this man, Isaac Huaman Pérez, was in charge of the Regional Agriculture Directorate of Ucayali, in charge of titling state properties or in the possession of farmers. In 2018, a public complaint indicated him as the leader of a presumed organization that set up a mechanism to favor, with titles, not farmers, but the plantations of Ucayali-Isaac

and plantations in Pucallpa, Sac. Both controlled by the Checo-American businessman Denis Melka, a financial operator of an emporium with palm oil businesses in other parts of the world. After the complaint, a leak of audio would mark the fall of the official and the alleged organization.

and the beginning of a high-flying investigation. He told me he was going to tell the whole truth and that was the fear. It's okay for him to tell the truth, but how can he prove it? Because if those files appear, then whoever presents the files must now be tried because where did those files come from? They can't appear. They can't appear, they can't appear right now.

The witness denounced that when the organization was discovered, his leaders ordered to burn the incriminatory files and asked his subordinates to cover the bosses. They disappeared and burned the file. And why did they burn it? They burned it by order of the director.

Wilber Wamanyauri was the first prosecutor to open an investigation. He named his file as "Caso Cochanía" because the events occurred in the Amazon sector with that name, located northeast of the two large blocks that were cut down for the planting of palm oil. They called people who were not in possession. They made them see that they were in possession, but the field itself was never with livestock or agriculture.

The evidence that the prosecutor gathered revealed that the goal of the regional officials was the sale of 3,600 hectares of Amazonia to the plantations of Pucallpa and Ucayali, which in parallel also acquired 10,000 hectares in the areas called Tibecocha and Sanjaseca.

According to the prosecutor and the witness, the public scandal frustrated the operation in Cochanía. However, the mechanism in Cochanía is revealing. The director of agriculture, Isaac Huamán,

No.

Everything was forest. And when the brigade asked Mr. Omnera, what was happening, why weren't the owners there, he answered, everything is already fixed, you don't worry. This work is already coordinated from the head, from the maximum authority.

The Governor, the engineer, and the head of the DISAFILPA have full knowledge. So they simulated? They simulated, a whole simulation. Then these people, with a form of purchase and sale contract, gave a simulation and it became something illegal.

From illegal to legal. And these lands were already in the hands of the companies dedicated to the Palma de Cetero.

Then, back in Pucallpa, the brigade met several times in the Regional Agriculture Directorate with the Chief of Staff, Isaac Huaman, with the Chief of the Legal and Physical Health Directorate, Disa Filpa, Jaime Montalban, and with the collaborator of these and the syndicate as contact between the Regional Directorate and the companies of Denis Melka, Obner Amasifuen Tanchiba. All of them are investigated. The president of the association

who said... Mrs. Macifuén? Mrs. Macifuén, who openly said that the area that was 3,600 hectares, which were areas of free availability of the State, areas that were, better said, without a title, were going to be negotiated with the plantations company Ucayare.

In fact, this same man, Omner, gave a amount of the negotiation, which was 3,000 soles per hectare. 3,000 soles for the 3,600 hectares that were supposed to be sold, go up to 10,800,000 soles. Who would pay that amount for the land and who would receive it? In the meeting, these people, these gentlemen, pointed out who was going to

plantaciones ucayali plantaciones ucayali eso dijeron ok y en varias oportunidades lo dijeron

Then came the audios of Guaman and other officials and the start of the tax investigation that would cost the fiscal Guaman Yauri. That's why he asked for guarantees for his life, but this turned out to be a boomerang. What a surprise that the superfect, who was here, was the lawyer, I don't remember the name of the person,

She had a direct link with the agriculture group, with the agriculture groups that were doing the land trafficking. And the agriculture management. Yes, the agriculture management had a perfect link. So, because of that, my people deny her the guarantee.

For safety reasons, the Public Prosecutor's Office transferred the prosecutor to Lima and he highlighted it precisely to the Super Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Organized Crime, which already investigated the cases of Ucayali. The prosecutor in charge, Álvaro Rodas Farro, added to the folder, named as Pucallpa case, Dennis Melka, his companies and, some time later, the company that in 2016 had assumed the helm of the business.

Until the end of this edition, Epicentro TV could not locate Obner Amasifuentanchiva. Melka has never appeared in the process and has not accredited a lawyer either. By routine procedure of the prosecution, he is only represented by a lawyer of office of the State Staff. He has a double passport, one American and another Czech. With this last one he entered the country until November 2019.

As for Isaac Huaman, now that he is out of prison, we are looking for him in his new work center, the provincial municipality of Coronel Portillo. Security agents sent us through a door, but according to this worker, Isaac Huaman left for another, alerted by our presence. Well, you told him that I was looking for him. He left.

His lawyer in Lima, Patricia Carranza Tinoco, said they would not give any statement. If in Cochahanía the purchase of 3,600 hectares was frustrated, in the surrounding areas, Tivecocha and Sanjaseca, Melca did buy more than 10,000 hectares.

In the San Jose case,

have been entitled to people who were not in possession. It is similar to the same way Superani has worked to legally entitle properties in the case of Cochanilla. With the knowledge of the regional director of agriculture, Eucayali, they looked for a number of people who did not even live in Ipucalpa, they took their ID and filled in the files or the data so that their properties are entitled.

In San Jaceka, there were landowners since the late 90s who were in the process of being appointed to the regional government. In 2012, they were hit hard when they were told that their lands were no longer their lands.

were from Denismelka. Destruction would not take long to arrive sailing along the river. How does the machinery arrive? It arrives in a big boat, a "chata". A "chata" arrives like this, all tractors, all to be able to clean all that stuff, right? Then, "bolquetes" arrived to make roads. And the next day they started cleaning, making the road. We already had our portfolio. When we cleaned the road... It says "clean, install".

"Talar" is to clean the forest for their purposes. Since 2003, Soylo Almanza and the Association of Palm-growers, to which it belonged, sought to formalize its possession for more than two decades. After the eruption of the plantations of Ucayali, they had to leave their lands and no authority wanted to accept their complaints.

In 2012, the Regional Agriculture Directorate of Ucayali approved the planting of 4,759 hectares of land in the Sanjaseca fund in Ucayali without the authorized direction of the Ministry of Agriculture approving the study of the elevation of the land of the property

and without the technical opinion on the taxation of the national property superintendency. It is not fair that the agriculture director sells it when he himself has gone to the assembly, he sells it to another person when we are in position and we are already at 5% we are missing to have our property title. Second, it is not fair that all the authorities do not want to do justice to this, even the judicial power itself

It's a very alarming case.

Very complex.

very delicate and terrifying, but archived. The Superior Prosecutor's Office must resolve the appeal. In Tibecocha, Melca bought more than 5,000 hectares of land that had been occupied between 1997 and 2014. There he also destroyed everything, flora and fauna, without environmental permission.

Before deforesting, Melca must have carried out studies to determine if the soil had agricultural aptitude. If it had, he must have requested the Ministry of Agriculture the change of use of the soil to make agriculture. And if the change was granted, it was just necessary to ask for authorization to cut it.

None of that was done. A disposition from Attorney General Rodas points out that the company did not have administrative authorization of environmental nature for such an aggressive intervention. Neither then nor later did Melca get the permission. He didn't care to destroy this part of the forest. This person created extra-fetish companies to deforest. So, what was this company worth?

of title properties. So we have a criminal organization economically speaking, constituted through the Plantaciones de Pucallpa company, today 8P Sur Sac, for us it is still exactly the same, and another criminal organization in Quistada in the regional government. Are they complemented? Yes.

Why? Because these officials are corrupt officials who saw the possibility of titling, selling and selling properties to this company that wanted to deforest. Here comes into the story the company that took the helm of the business when Melka fell into disgrace: Ocho Sur Sac, a firm of foreign capital. Ocho Sur has nothing to do

with the events that happened before its creation. Ocho Sur exists since 2016 and Ocho Sur is a consequence of the bankruptcy of the companies of Mr. Melca, who had created a trust and commission as a consequence of the beginning of his activities in 2012.

Like the two plantations of Melca, Ocho Sur was also divided into two. Ocho Sur P was in charge of the property of plantations of Pucallpa to the north in Tivecocha and Ocho Sur U, which belonged to plantations of Ucayali to the south in San Jaceca.

Attorney Rodas believes that Ocho Sur is still in touch with Melca. The company's lawyer, Enrique Gersi, rejects it. From our point of view, there is a legal, financial, and societal maneuver that was used to unlink or try to unlink both companies. What is it? The use of infidels and commissions.

This fee insured the buildings and somehow denoted some decrease.

This trust, which was from a third company, ended up in the hands of 8P Surzac, without any explanation. Besides, the same officials, the same executives of the plantations of Pucallpa, ended up working in the company 8P Surzac. It is a regrettably serious mistake, but I understand that the prosecutors do not have to know

how the Fideicomisos work. So the companies that owed money to Mr. Melka, the plantations, Pucallpa and Ucayali, constitute the Fideicomiso in favor of the accreditors. This is structured, as I told you, in New York. They don't pay these companies, the accreditors take over the company's assets.

There are records that indicate that until 2019, Melca was the director of Peruvian Palm Holdings, one of the seven offshore companies that financed the operations of Ochozú. The company claims that its presence was marginal and that it is now null. The truth is that Melca would have been just an operator of large investors,

Despite its presence or absence, in court, if there is a court, it could be defined who are the investors who move the strings. Gersi talks about differences between the Melca stage and what is now Ocho Sur. There is no transfer of economic activity. They transfer broken assets.

that the company has to capitalize, the two new owners, Ocho Sur, have to capitalize and develop a new economic activity. That's why there is no relationship. We tell Gersi that the economic activity of Ocho Sur is the same that the plantations of Pucallpa and Ucayali did, that is, the processing of palm oil.

But the lawyer says it's not like that. They keep working with palm oil, not with mangoes, not with bananas. But, as I say, we don't do agriculture. The company is dedicated to palm oil. That doesn't mean it's the same economic activity. But, let's see, it's not the same economic activity. Suppose you have a company, and that company has a car as an asset, and you break it. You had a taxi and you broke it.

and you had given your car to a Fideicomiso in Guarantialba. What does the bank do? It takes out the Fideicomiso, the car. It comes and I buy it. Enrique Gersi, I don't dedicate myself to the taxi, I dedicate myself to personal transport. I am still in the economic field, transport, but it is not the same economic activity. I am another person.

I'm another company. But it keeps rolling. But it keeps mobilizing people. Yes, but also the mushrooms that grow in the plants are vegetables. That's not why there's the same economic activity. The economic activity in the companies of Melca... But the economic activity is Palma and Palma. No, because the plant has nothing to do with it. I mean, the vegetable. The issue is that the economic activity is not the assets. The economic activity is the management.

The economic activity is management, and the management of the Melca companies is zero, because it broke. Rhetoric, lawyer or reality, however it may be, as long as it is diluted, the environmental regulation requested by Ocho Sur must also be defined by the without permission of Melca deforestation. For this, it has presented to the State its Program of Environmental Adjustment and Management, PAMA,

There is still no answer. Ocho Sur trusts. The fiscal Rodas sees it impossible. This is not the game of the P.A. Not because Melca has made a mistake, you take it with Ocho Sur. No, it is a problem that remains in the companies of Melca, responsibility of the management of Melca and its people. The new company has not made any mistake. So what does Ocho Sur do? By regularization, it does its job.

And that's where it is. Neither of the two companies, nor plantations in Pucallpa, nor 8P Surza, will ever be able to have an authorization. First, because they never had it. On the way they tried to get it, yes, but they will never be able to consolidate it for a simple reason. A fundamental requirement, and without which an environmental authorization cannot be granted, is to have the authorization for the change of use of land. And that has not happened and will not be able to happen.

So the consequence is one: they did not have authorization to search. Last April, the Peruvian government approved decree supreme number 05/2022 of the Ministry of Agriculture. The second final complementary provision of the norm says that the line of vegetable coverage for land classification purposes, due to its capacity for greater use, is determined by 2011.

whose inputs for its determination include aerial photographs, satellite images and all related material. We asked the company if the norm would open the doors to the regularization they need and responded through lawyer Gersi: "As far as we have analyzed, the supreme decree has no relevant consequences on the company. Regarding its environmental management instruments for its two funds, this is still in process," Gersi reported.

The company emphasizes that since 2016 it has been doing this process and that it is a bureaucracy foreign to its will that dilates the result absurdly. It is a serious structural problem in Peru that affects the entire sector as a whole.

Only 0.5% of agricultural land in the country has an approved environmental instrument, that is, 99.5% does not yet have it. In other words, the 8 Sur company is in the same situation that almost all sector companies reported for this report by lawyer García.

All this is referred, it is worth clarifying, to the authorization for the deforest and subsequent planting of palm oil, because this palm processing plant, which was installed in one of the fields two years ago to make oil for export, does have authorization. Curious order of the factors. The Peruvian Amazon registers a notorious increase in deforestation.

The average forest loss was 150,000 hectares per year, but in 2020 it rose to 203,000 hectares. At that rate, in five years the country could lose one million hectares more of the jungle. In Peru there are 73 million hectares of Amazonian forests. If cases like that of Denis Melka and the Ucayali officials continue to occur without law and with impunity,

In a few generations, half of the Amazon could be destroyed.