Peruvian congressman Carlos Zegarra of the Fuerza Popular party accepted a campaign contribution from a convicted money thief who is currently a fugitive from justice.
Official electoral filings reveal that businessman Luis Domehak Torres Reyes donated a vehicle valued at 2,000 soles to Zegarra's campaign in February 2026. At the time of the donation, Torres Reyes had already received a six-year prison sentence for aggravated receiving of stolen goods in connection with the kidnapping of a lawyer.
The revelation was reported by the Peruvian investigative television program Cuarto Poder, which cited records maintained by the National Office of Electoral Processes.
Zegarra represents the southern coastal region of Ica in the Congress of the Republic of Peru. He is a member of Fuerza Popular, a right-wing political party led by former presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori. Under Peruvian election laws, all candidates are required to register campaign financial contributions and in-kind gifts with the National Office of Electoral Processes, the government authority responsible for auditing political spending.
When questioned about the transaction in a prior interview, Zegarra said he did not recall the names on the list of campaign contributors that he signed and submitted to electoral authorities.
Stolen Bank Funds
Rocío del Carmen Arástegui, deputy prosecutor at the Second Provincial Criminal Corporate Prosecutor's Office of Pisco, confirmed that Torres Reyes remains on the run. Authorities issued an arrest warrant following his conviction in a first-instance court, but law enforcement officers have so far failed to locate him.
Prosecutors reconstructed the movement of funds stolen from lawyer Flor María Palomino Manturano, who was abducted in June 2022 by a criminal network led by Hipólito Jaques Taipe.
Investigators found that while Palomino was held captive, Torres Reyes held 14 telephone calls with Jaques Taipe. During the abduction, the criminal group progressively withdrew more than 75,000 soles from Palomino's bank account.
Court records established that Torres Reyes went in person to a bank teller window to collect 10,000 soles of the stolen money. Additional funds from the victim's account were transferred to bank accounts belonging to relatives and close employees of Torres Reyes.
Pisco, a port city in the Ica region located in southern Peru, served as the primary setting for the financial transactions tracked by prosecutors.
Journalist Murder Probe
The campaign finance scandal is not the only legal challenge facing the lawmaker. Zegarra's name also appears in a confidential prosecutor file investigating the murder of Gastón Medina, a veteran journalist based in Ica who was killed in January 2025.
Medina was shot dead by a hitman at the entrance of his residence after spending years broadcasting allegations of official corruption within the Regional Government of Ica.
Before his election to Congress, Zegarra worked as an adviser to Jorge Hurtado, who was then serving as the regional governor of Ica. According to a report published on August 4 by the national newspaper La República, the Human Rights Prosecutor's Office maintains an open investigation to identify who ordered the killing.
Investigators listed Zegarra in the case file as one of the alleged intellectual authors who masterminded the crime. Zegarra denied any involvement in Medina's death and said he was never summoned by prosecutors to give a formal statement regarding the murder investigation.
Audio Recording Warning
Months prior to his death, Medina aired a recorded telephone conversation on his program on Cadena Sur TV, a regional television station operating in Ica. Medina reported at the time that the recording contained details of a plot to kill him.
The broadcast recording featured a conversation involving Víctor Mere, a local figure in Ica, and a second individual whose voice Mere identified as belonging to Zegarra.
During the call, one speaker singled out Medina and former Ica vice governor Luz Canales as targets for a potential attack. The second speaker replied that they should advance along that line.
Following the broadcast, Medina issued a public call for Zegarra to clarify whether the recorded voice was his, but the lawmaker never responded. Mere subsequently contacted Medina's television show directly to warn the reporter that his life was in danger.
Medina was gunned down in January 2025. Weeks after the assassination, while listed by prosecutors as a key witness in the murder inquiry, Mere was also shot and killed by hitmen.
