'Factop Case': Chilean justice orders Rodrigo Topelberg and Ariel Sauer to leave Capitán Yáber and be placed under house arrest

The Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago has revoked this Tuesday the preventive detention of businessmen Rodrigo Topelberg and Ariel Sauer and has ordered their release from Captain Yáber prison by changing their precautionary measures to total house arrest and national roots. Both are involved in the case of the Factop brokerage, of which they were partners, and are being investigated by the Chilean Prosecutor's Office for repeated scams and issuance of false invoices. Ariel Sauer is the brother of Daniel Sauer, who is also involved in the audio case scandal , the political and judicial plot that became public in November 2023, after a recording of a private conversation he had with the criminal lawyer Luis Hermosilla and the lawyer Leonarda Villalobos was released, in which they mentioned the payments of bribes to public officials of the Internal Revenue Service (SII) and the Commission for the Financial Market (CMF). In this case, Hermosilla and Villalobos are formalized by the Public Ministry for bribery and money laundering. It was Leonarda Villolobos who admitted that she recorded the conversation in the office that Hermosilla then had in the eastern sector of Santiago, and Rodrigo Toppelberg who confessed, in a court hearing last August, which leaked and disclosed the audio of the criminal Hermosilla, who advised Factop along with Villalobos, and sent it to the CMF and the media Ciper Chile, which published on November 14 of last year the conversation that gave rise to the case. Topelberg has been in preventive detention since April, after the Court of Appeals ordered his admission to Capitán Yáber, a prison located in the Justice Center neighborhood, in the municipality of Santiago. Last August the measure had been revoked and he was changed to house arrest, but in September he returned to prison. Daniel Sauer, on the other hand, has been in jail for seven months, the same situation as his brother Ariel and Luis Hermosilla. Lawyer Villalobos has the same precautionary measure, but she complies with it in a female prison. The decision of the Fourth Guarantee Court of Santiago to revoke the preventive detention of Rodrigo Topelberg and Ariel Sauer is based on the collaboration they have provided in the case. Prosecutor Juan Pablo Araya, at the end of the hearing, valued this contribution and classified it as “a great advance” for the investigation. “The important thing is that both defendants, after eight months of deprivation of liberty, finally decided to contribute to the investigation,” he said. “In their latest statements they have already clarified both their participation and the mechanisms that were used and we understand that this already constitutes a great advance and that allows us to at least understand that with respect to these two people a less intense precautionary measure is justified, which in any case continues to be a deprivation of liberty,» he explained to the prosecutor. The Sauer brothers' lawyer, Octavio Sufán, has said that “Ariel's collaborations and Daniel have allowed us to provide background information so that other people can be linked and, in some way, clarify, rectify and modify certain participations within the case. In that context, we are satisfied with the decision that has released Ariel Sauer.” And he added: “There are confidential records from the Public Ministry and also the defense that we believe are necessary to come to light first, to review the precautionary measure and, second, to demonstrate, reliably, that Daniel Sauer has also collaborated in this investigation. and in the clarification of the facts.» This collaboration leads to the next formalization, in an aspect related to the Factop case, for tax and economic crimes that the Prosecutor's Office will carry out against Daniel Sauer and 12 others involved, among them The brothers Álvaro and Antonio Jalaff, executives of the Patio Group, will be charged on January 13 with money laundering, fraud, unfair administration and malicious use of a false private commercial instrument. Together with the Jalaff brothers, the Prosecutor's Office will also notify that has an investigation against eight senior executives of the Larrain Vial brokerage. Regarding the upcoming formalization on January 13, prosecutor Salas said that the request made to the court is for various types illicit acts, including money laundering, tax crimes, scams, unfair administration and crimes of violation of the securities market law. “Mainly, they have to do with the allocation of part of the funds that were obtained through the crimes for which the accused have been charged since April 8 [día en que fueron detenidos los hermanos Sauer] and that they ended up in the hands of other people.”