Peru’s President Pedro Castillo has sworn in Kelly Portalatino as the country’s new Minister of Health on Thursday, a day after dismissing Jorge Lopez from his post for alleged corruption.
In a ceremony held in the Caceres Hall of the Government Palace, the new Health Minister expressed her commitment to be loyal to the Peruvian Constitution. «For a dignified and quality health, yes I promise,» she said, according to ‘La República’.
Portalatino is a surgeon graduated from the San Pedro de Ancash University and was elected congresswoman of the Republic for the five-year term 2021-2016 by the political organization to which Castillo also belongs, Peru Libre.
In this way, the new head of the Ministry of Health succeeds Jorge Lopez, who was dismissed last Monday by the Peruvian president after a media reported his participation in a possible case of ‘smurfing’ for the purchase of a property by his former romantic partner.
The ‘smurfing’ is a modality of asset laundering, by which the suspects would have contributed large amounts of money by means of fractioned contributions, instead of in a single bank deposit, with the intention of not raising suspicions of the control mechanisms in the banking system.
