Paraguay
Raúl Benítez Summoned as Witness in the “Dirty Campaign” Case
The lawmaker was called to testify on Monday 28 in the case opened following a complaint by communicator Hugo Portillo. According to ABC Color, the time and place of the appearance still need to be defined.
Deputy Raúl Benítez was summoned by the Prosecutor’s Office to give testimony as a witness in case No. 40/2026, filed as “Unnamed Persons v/ Breach of Trust,” publicly known as the investigation into the “dirty campaign”.
According to ABC Color, the appearance is scheduled for Monday 28 and the time and place still need to be confirmed. According to the notification, prosecutors Marlene González, Laura Giacummo and Ruth Benitez, from the Specialized Unit for Economic Crimes and Anti-Corruption, left it to the lawmaker’s discretion whether he appears at the Public Ministry headquarters or requests that the proceeding take place in his office. That same day, moreover, a national holiday decreed by the Executive Branch is in force.
The investigation was opened following a complaint by communicator Hugo Portillo, who asked for an inquiry into the alleged financing of attack campaigns on social media directed against dissident Colorado politicians, opposition leaders, news outlets and critical journalists, allegedly with state funds, including resources from Itaipú and Yacyretá, according to ABC Color.
The newspaper also noted that Benítez had reported the case on repeated occasions from his seat and promoted at least three requests for information. Those requests, the outlet said, received terse responses from the Ministry of Information and Communication Technologies, while others addressed to the binational entities were blocked.
ABC Color said that one of the accounts under investigation, Despierta Paraguay (DPY), was linked to the Colombian firm Digimarketing SAS, which would have promoted attack content on platforms such as Meta and Google LLC, while at the same time promoting state programs such as Hambre Cero, Programa Sumar and Che Roga Porã.
In addition, the outlet said that another page in that network, Central Noticias (CN), implicates Juan Roberto “Jimmy” Villaverde Emategui, former head of social media for President Santiago Peña and former MITIC seconded official. According to ABC Color, both Minister Gustavo Villate and Vice Minister Alejandra Duarte Albospino denied that relationship on several occasions, until a response to a request for information from the Chamber of Deputies acknowledged that Duarte Albospino herself signed Villaverde’s appointment as director under her supervision.
The case also added a complaint by media entrepreneur Christian Chena. ABC Color indicated that this case made it possible to document another link between Despierta Paraguay and Vice Minister Duarte Albospino based on the tracking of a phone line linked to the account, registered in the name of Venezuelan citizen Yecika Magle Bracho Atacho, who has now agreed to cooperate with the plaintiff.
Still according to ABC Color, that line leads to an address in Asunción where Bracho established residence and where the local office of the Argentine advertising agency Azafrán also operated, which the outlet links to Duarte Albospino. It also mentioned conversations provided by Bracho herself with Sergio Masero, a representative of that firm, in which deliveries of multimillion-dollar sums of money to the vice minister in March 2023 are mentioned.
Sources
About this note. Written by El Notero with the assistance of artificial intelligence, based on what was published by the cited outlet. El Notero did not conduct its own reporting on this event.
