#CuraumaCase / An Investigation into Cyber Sabotage in the Judiciary Sleeps at the Prosecutor's Office / Chile

#CasoCurauma

An Investigation into Cyber Sabotage in the Judiciary Sleeps at the Prosecutor's Office

 

By Felipe Saleh | Santiago, Chile. August 30, 2024

 

The Administrative Corporation of the Judiciary, the same entity involved in the aborted Lexus cars purchase, acknowledged that two cases were assigned to an incorrect court. A complaint, backed by former prosecutor Sabas Chahuán, aims to uncover how the supposedly random system for court assignments actually operates.

 

The judicial crisis has a less sensational chapter in an investigation by the Public Prosecutor's Office into a cybercrime that, by jurisdiction, should be handled by the North Central Prosecutor’s Office. In fact, a complaint presents evidence that the system used to assign cases to courts was manipulated.

 

The legal action, supported by attorney Jesica Torres and former National Prosecutor Sabas Chahuán, details how two different legal proceedings, involving the same subject matter and the same attorneys, were both assigned to the 2nd Civil Court of Santiago.

 

According to the current computerized system, in place since 1997 and modified in 2016, the probability of something like this happening is 1.75 in 1,000. If the criteria that determine random selection had been followed, the cases should have been handled by the 6th Civil Court and the 15th Civil Court, respectively.

 

On the surface of this issue lies the bankruptcy of Curauma Real Estate (Curauma S.A.), an urban development project initiated by Chilean entrepreneur Manuel Cruzat Infante, with land valued at 500 million US dollars. Cruzat claims that the system’s manipulation favored one of the creditors in the bankruptcy.

 

"A civilly fraudulent scheme devised by EuroAmerica Seguros de Vida S.A. to strip Grupo CB of its most valuable properties, all within the context of Curauma S.A.’s bankruptcy,” states the complaint.

 

In addition to Curauma, the other case assigned to the 2nd Court was the insolvency process of Latam Airline, which completed its restructuring in 2022.

 

The Algorithm Man

 

In theory, and this is what the Public Prosecutor's investigation must determine, it is technically possible to choose courts by simply turning off the algorithm. This is what the complaint, filed in 2022, seeks to prove, though there has been no progress so far. The issues of public trust faced by the Judiciary would be exacerbated by evidence supporting this claim, a scenario that contributes to the stagnation of the investigation.

 

Suspicions are directed at the Administrative Corporation of the Judiciary (CAPJ), the entity responsible for the Case Distribution System. The CAPJ has added its share to the criticisms the Judiciary has faced in recent months.

 

Its director, Ricardo Guzmán Sanza, is currently under investigation for the episode involving the cancellation of the purchase of 23 Lexus cars that were intended for the Supreme Court’s justices and prosecutor.

 

The purchase was canceled after public criticism, and Guzmán resigned. Although his resignation was not accepted, this key figure in the administration of nearly 176.1 million US dollars was replaced, and the results of the investigation to clarify the controversial purchase remain unknown.

 

The complaint, which exposes doubts about a fundamental aspect of justice administration, coincides with suspicions regarding Ricardo Guzmán’s suitability. He has held the position from which courts are assigned to cases for the past ten years. Guzmán, a Commercial Engineer from Arturo Prat University, holds a master’s degree in Business Administration from the Catholic University, and a doctorate in management from the Free University of Sciences and Technology of Belgium, which turned out to be fake, leading the University of Chile to revoke its recognition.

 

Landing in the Wrong Court

 

The CAPJ responded to the plaintiff’s inquiries about the criteria used to assign a case to its respective court. The responses, provided between April and May 2023, reveal that in the two legal processes under suspicion, the court assignments were not made using the appropriate random mechanism.

 

In an initial report, the Administrative Corporation of the Judiciary (CAPJ) outlines the criteria for assigning a case to a specific court. The first step is to filter all courts that can handle, in this case, a Bankruptcy Law proceeding. Then, among those courts, the one with the highest total number of cases is chosen.

 

“The matter will be assigned to the court with the fewest cases of the same nature among the candidate courts. If more than one court has the same minimum number of cases, the matter will be assigned to the court with the fewest total cases,” states the report from April 11, 2022.

 

Using these criteria, it was possible to determine, through an expert analysis, that both cases should have been assigned to the 6th Civil Court, which had 14,027 cases, and the 15th Civil Court, with 8,618 cases, respectively.

 

The results of this analysis were presented to the CAPJ. The entity responded again in a report dated May 2022. The Corporation changed the criteria and acknowledged that the assigned court in the Curauma case was incorrect.

 

“Regarding which court had the fewest cases, it is important to note that this circumstance is not considered a criterion when assigning a case but is instead an accumulation of all cases distributed by the court. In this regard, the court with the fewest assigned cases was the 6th Civil Court of Santiago, with 14,027 cases,” says the report dated May 23.

 

In the responses, there is no explanation of how the algorithm is constructed or how it functions. The database language and any other elements that would allow for verifying its application are unknown. In short, its existence is acknowledged, but the technical details of how it functions are not publicly known.

 

Despite the irrefutable evidence that the case assignment system was manipulated and the real possibility that this was a business, known as forum shopping, the Prosecutor’s Office investigation has seen no progress so far.