LIMA, Oct 16 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — The false death of Peruvian President, Pedro Castillo, and National Prosecutor, Patricia Benavides, was at the center of a scandal over possible ‘hacking’ (cyber intrusion) of the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (Reniec).
Death certificates of both officials appeared on the Internet platform of Reniec.
The media and political scandal broke out when the press reported that in the aforementioned registry, Segundo Alejandro Sánchez appeared as deceased by suicide, linked to the head of state and a fugitive with an arrest warrant for alleged corruption.
Opposition parliamentarians and media pointed out that it could be a government maneuver to hide the fugitive, which Justice Minister Félix Chero denied, noting that Reniec would be summoned for explanations.
The head of Reniec, Carmen Velarde, indicated this type of problem dates back to last month, for which she asked the Ministry of Health for a list of its personnel and of doctors who access the death registry to register death certificates.
According to Velarde, officials from that ministry asked her to wait until Oct 21, which she considered a lack of interest, so she took control measures against the misuse of access codes for various purposes.
The official announced that as of today Reniec has blocked Internet access to her registry of death certificates and reestablished the old practice of requiring printed certificates to register them.
The Minister of Health, Jorge López, said that the person in charge of registering deaths is Reniec and that its computer system is vulnerable, so it must be strengthened and assured that the system of the body in charge of it is one of those with the greatest protection. against intrusions into the country.
The Peruvian Public Prosecutor’s Office has opened preliminary proceedings at RENIEC and the Ministry of Health for an alleged offense against the integrity of computer data, for having altered death figures.
The investigation is being carried out by prosecutors specialized in cybercrime and experts from the Public Prosecutor’s Office with the purpose of “gathering information on the modification of RENIEC’s death records”, according to the Peruvian news agency Andina.
The scandal was unleashed in the country after a false death certificate of Segundo Alejandro Sanchez Sanchez, fugitive from justice and owner of a house located in Breña, where President Pedro Castillo used to meet during his first days in office, was made public.
Sanchez Sanchez was on the run from justice since Tuesday Oct 11 and when the authorities issued a preliminary arrest two days later he was listed as deceased in the RENIEC page. However, the doctor who supposedly certified the death was quick to deny in the media that he had not made that signature and would take legal action, according to the newspaper ‘Gestión’.
However, the first records of false deaths date back to the end of September, when two members of a family realized that they could not confirm their voting place because it appeared as ‘deceased’. Although on Sept 25 the death of Pedro Castillo himself was ‘certified’, decapitated in the Government Palace.
However, the head of RENIEC, Carmen Milagros Velarde Koechlin, has pointed out that the doctors were responsible, since they were authorized by the Ministry of Health to certify the deaths. She also announced that from now on, no more certificates of this nature will be processed through the Internet and has invited the health professionals to do it manually. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
