Corruption charges mount for Martinelli fugitive sidekick

WHILE EX-PRESIDENT  Ricardo Martinelli  sits behind bars in a Miami detention center during extradition proceedings, his former private secretary remains on the run with multiple corruption cases against him accumulating  in Panama.

The Anti-Corruption Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged Adolfo Chichi De Obarrio with unjustified enrichment. An audit carried out by The Office of the Comptroller General showed that he could not justify a patrimony of $3 million on his $5,000 monthly salary. The audit and investigation involves six other suspects whose names have not yet been revealed  While working for Martinelli he  was seen as the messenger boy carrying instructions to successive  directors of the former National Assistance  Program (PAN)

Martinelli attended his secretary’s  an extravagant wedding, reported to have cost  over $500,000.

Prosecutors have seized two assets of the former high flying satrap.

One of them is an apartment in the Icon Tower building, in Panama’s San Francisco, district reports La Prensa,.

The audit also involves six other people, whose names were not revealed, but whose accounts in different  banks have been uncovered.

Chichi De Obarrio is also being investigated for alleged acts of corruption linked to the PAN, including  being called to trial for alleged irregularities in the contract for the $44.5 million purchase of dehydrated food from Lerkshore International by the PAN.

Meanwhile The Public Ministry is  investigating  him  for supposed anomalies in the purchase of grains, and for  contracts granted in a  Ministry of Housing program.

De Obarrio is the subject of an Interpol  red alert. He fled Panama with his wife on Christmas Day 2015, ten months after his former boss