The prosecution requests prison for Santiago Peña, former president of Paraguay, for the Ueno Bank case

The Paraguayan Prosecutor's Office requested this Saturday preventive detention against former president Santiago Peña, whom it formally charged with alleged breach of trust and administration for personal gain during his appearance within the investigation into the closure of Ueno Bank, an entity to which the former president has been linked and whose case led to his dismissal.

Peña was dismissed on Friday and subsequently detained for “poor performance of duties” following the dissolution due to insolvency problems of Ueno, a bank with some three million clients, including important state institutions whose funds were frozen. He is currently under house arrest.

Following the request of the public ministry, a judge must determine, in a hearing to impose measures, whether to accept the prosecutors' request. According to the indictment, the former president is accused of alleged breach of trust as the instigator and administration for personal gain as the author.

The document indicates that the former president “would have intervened in circumstances related to the placement, renewal and permanence of significant sums of money from public and pension entities” in Ueno Bank, an entity with whose business group Peña “would have maintained a previous economic and corporate relationship.”

Peña was a shareholder in Ueno Holding, a conglomerate of the Vásquez Group that owned, among other companies, Ueno Bank. In March 2025, he sold that stake, detailed the accusation of the deputies who promoted the impeachment against him.

Ueno Bank, the Prosecutor's Office document adds, would have received these public resources "while developing credit operations with companies allegedly linked to its economic group", in which "observations and irregularities were identified by the supervisory bodies of the Central Bank."

The public ministry also charged and requested preventive detention against the former president of the Central Bank of Paraguay Carlos Carvallo for alleged breach of trust, immediate production of public documents with false content and administration for personal gain, as the author. Carvallo appeared before the authorities on Friday night and was arrested.

The former official presided over Financiera Ueno, from which Ueno Bank was born, before assuming the leadership of the issuing entity in 2023, whose board of directors authorized "83 days" after his appointment the creation of the closed banking entity, the deputies explained in their accusation.

During the Peña administration, the Social Security Institute invested some $355 million in Ueno, which also managed the accounts of some 32,000 retirees.

In this case, the Prosecutor's Office has also charged 27 people, including Miguel Vásquez, one of the founders of Ueno Bank, who this Friday was transferred along with five other directors to prisons for defendants.