Paraguayan investigators opened a concealed armored vault inside ousted President Santiago Peña’s $1.23 million summer residence after he provided the access code from jail, El Espectador reported, as Ueno Bank’s record bond issue fell below 6 cents on the dollar. Authorities discovered the level 7 security room behind a false wall during a raid on the mansion, which was partly financed with Ueno loans carrying monthly payments nearly six times Peña’s presidential salary. The door is equipped with an Israeli security system featuring face, iris and fingerprint recognition that officers had been unable to unlock on their own.
The search is part of a criminal investigation into the collapse of Ueno Bank, Paraguay’s largest digital lender, during which employees at the bank and an affiliated brokerage tried to destroy documents mentioning Peña shortly before police raids, GloboNews reported. Prosecutors have asked the US, Luxembourg and Argentina to help trace diverted funds and are examining $850 million in public money placed at the bank, including a 4,600% jump in state pension deposits under Peña’s administration to 1.6 trillion guaraníes ($380 million). Peña was a shareholder and business partner in Ueno parent Grupo Vázquez until March 2025.
Peña is in pretrial detention on charges of breach of trust and administration for personal gain after the Senate voted 44-0 on Nov 6 to impeach him rather than accept his resignation, stripping him of the lifetime Senate seat and legal immunity granted to former presidents. Paraguay’s central bank seized Ueno on Nov 3 after $146 million in related party loans to three Grupo Vázquez companies pushed its solvency ratio down to about 6%, half the 12% legal minimum, freezing $2.8 billion in deposits across 3 million customers.
