Hit and run driver fingered for $20,000

AN AQUAINTANCE   of Edwin Enrique  Chérigo, 27 will likely pick up the $20,000 reward offered for his capture after the Kia car he had rented, hit and killed a prominent Panama  cycling athlete.

Chérigo had ignored an appeal to surrender and was captured in a house on Fourth Street Barriada Las Perlas, in Canto del Llano de Santiago, Veraguas.

The arrest  came after a person revealed his whereabouts and qualified for the reward, reports El Siglo .

After his capture, he was sent to the headquarters of the Directorate of Judicial Investigation( DIJ) in Ancon, Panama,  currently housing multiple white  corruption suspects.
Minutes later, the police chief, Omar Pinzón, ordered him  sent to the Punta Coco,jail, where he will join some of the country’s most hardened criminals
Chérigo is accused of  hitting and killing  the cyclist Monica Licona on Sunday September 20, on Avenida Balboa.He fled the scene and left the rented white Kia) on Calle  32,  adjoining Avenida Mexico, ​​Bella Vista.
After Chérigo’s arrest , President Juan Carlos Varela said there would be an investigation of car ental companies and how they operated in  the country.

Captain Gustavo Batista, of the DIJ, said that in criminal cases where cars are involved, most of the time it was found that those who rented the vehicle, used false or stolen documents.

Chérigo, in 2014 worked in the Ministry of Public Works (MOP) as a manual laborer earning $450.00 a month. He rented the car on September 14 and should have returned it on September 21, according to prosecutors.
The  vehicle is usually rented for an approximate cost of $50 per day.