The former Bolivian president Luis Arce denied this Thursday that he was involved in the alleged “influence peddling” of which the former president of the Spanish Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is accused of, in exchange for 200,000 euros.
“I was not and am not involved in any influence peddling that has favored Soboce (Bolivian Cement Society),” Arce (2020-2025), who has been preventively imprisoned since December for a case of alleged corruption, stated in a publication on his social networks.
Since 2010, the cement company Soboce has had a legal dispute with the state-owned Fábrica Nacional de Cementos (Fancesa) over the ownership of shares that would allow the first company to expand its regional plants, which was denounced by the second as a case of alleged unfair competition.
Arce defends that the business dispute “was not generated during his Government”
Since 2014, the case also involved the Peruvian group Gloria, current majority shareholder of Soboce, which demands compensation for the reversal of those actions and maintains litigation against the Bolivian State.
In this regard, Arce clarified that the dispute between Soboce and the Gloria Group before the Bolivian State “was not generated during his Government” and recalled that in 2025 a judicial resolution granted protection in favor of the former, although this was challenged by the State Attorney General’s Office (PGE) that same year.
On Wednesday, a report from the Economic and Financial Crimes Unit (UDEF) of the National Police was released, dated June 22, which maintains that Rodríguez Zapatero participated in a “dynamic of intermediation and influence” with Bolivian authorities aimed at “benefiting the interests” of the Peruvian business group Gloria, “mediating an economic consideration of 200,000 euros.”
