Santiago Peña's house, before and after his detention: from tranquility to a police operation

ASUNCIÓN.– After midday, in the Senate, then-president Santiago Peña was the exclusive figure in every speech. In the plaza in front of the Legislative Palace, his face or his surname appeared on practically all of the protesters' signs. However, at 3:05 p.m., when LA NACION went to the former president's home, the neighborhood was a true picture of small-town tranquility. Nothing suggested that the main protagonist of the financial crisis that ended the life of a bank with nearly three million accounts could be found there. Santiago Peña's house in Asunción, in the Santísima Trinidad neighborhood. Fabián Marelli/Special Correspondent. Quite the opposite, in fact: there were no security cars, police vehicles, guards, or patrol cars at the door. Just three officers chatting on the corner and nothing more. Santiago Peña's family residence in Asunción is located in the Trinidad neighborhood, on Cándido Vasconcellos street, near Pino González. It is a house with two gates and a main entrance, hidden behind a wall. Cobblestone streets and abundant vegetation shape the area. "Have you seen the president these days?" LA NACION asked a neighbor who was standing right in front of the entrance gate. "Yes, he's seen all the time," she replied, sitting in a chair under a tree. "Is he here now?" the conversation continued. But the neighbor, almost as if afraid of being overheard, answered with an unmistakable gesture by which she tried to say, without uttering a single word, that he was at the home. With gestures she made it clear that the most wanted man in Paraguay was in his house. Police in front of Santiago Peña's house in Asunción. Fabián Marelli/Special Correspondent. It is an area of Asunción located about 20 minutes from downtown, with low houses and steep streets, most of them covered by an anarchic cobblestoning, very different from the paving of Buenos Aires. At night, already removed from office and without immunity, the appearance of that village-like picture changed. With an arrest warrant, the police arrived at the place and the former president was placed under arrest in the same house where he had remained during the afternoon. Everything happened minutes after he was removed from office "as a result of a banking crisis that froze the deposits of half the population," the Prosecutor's Office reported. A protester holds a sign against the removed president Santiago Peña during a protest over the banking crisis in front of the Congress of Paraguay, in Asunción. DANIEL DUARTE - AFP. "He will remain in detention at his home," prosecutor Silvia Margarita González Vester told the press. Peña will be taken to the Prosecutor's Office tomorrow at 11 a.m., where he will be questioned for the alleged crimes of breach of trust, influence peddling, and self-dealing administration, according to what was heard in the accusation. By Diego Cabot