According to testimony from Gonzalo Migueles, former Supreme Court Justice Ángela Vivanco had knowledge by September 2023 that attorney Eduardo Lagos would direct payments his way should the Belarusian consortium Belaz-Movitec (CBM) obtain favourable rulings on appeals lodged before the highest court. Within days, the Third Chamber and Vivanco gave effect to a pair of resolutions directing Codelco to transfer $5.441 million to CBM.
A declaration logged at the OS7 premises on 3 September sits in direct tension with the accounts both he and Vivanco had previously given investigators — accounts in which each of them held that the former judge had been unaware of any payments. Prosecutors treated the 12-page filing as evidence of cooperation with their inquiry, a determination that led to Migueles being freed from pre-trial custody on Wednesday, 30 September.
Migueles had been held at the Capitán Yáber Penitentiary Annex from 15 November 2025 onward, following a formal charge on counts of bribery, corruption, and money laundering. In statements reported by a television news outlet, he indicated that it was during a conversation about machine operations that he told Ángela fees would be shared with him if Eduardo Lagos prevailed in the case, and that only at that point — not earlier — did she become aware of the payments he stood to receive.
That exchange, the investigative outlet reported, predated the 21 September 2023 Supreme Court filing in which attorneys Eduardo Lagos, Gabriel Silber, and Mario Vargas put forward a claim on behalf of CBM, seeking redress for financial harm the company sustained when its machinery was relocated during its ongoing dispute with Codelco. A week after the initial filing, the Third Chamber voted to grant CBM's request — a ruling issued by Vivanco at a time when, by her own awareness, her then-partner stood to receive payments tied directly to that decision, yet she chose not to step aside.
Testifying on the matter, Migueles drew a boundary around the arrangements, tying them solely to Lagos while stating that the two other partners — Mario Vargas and Gabriel Silber — had been kept out of the loop, as Eduardo had directed him to keep the details from everyone, those two individuals included.
Five transactions connected to the CBM matter were among the items he laid out, with the combined sum reaching US$95,000. Of those transactions, four took place after September 2023 — a period during which Vivanco, as Migueles has stated, had already been informed about the payments originating from Lagos.
The attorney notified him that the Supreme Court ruling had gone in their favour and that a bonus payment would follow. In a phone call around mid-June 2024, Eduardo reportedly directed him to return to the exchange house and collect $45,000. According to his own account, the sum tied to the Belarusian consortium's proceedings was the highest of any involved in the matter.
Migueles explained that he turned to Ángela Vivanco because of the role she held at the time — as president of the Supreme Court, he told her, she was positioned to accelerate the review of a case that had already reached that tribunal and that he wanted handled without delay. Throughout the day, Lagos maintained a firm position, while updates on how events were unfolding continued to reach Vivanco through him. The former judge, according to that account, indicated she would make every effort and expressed no reservations, noting that the pace of progress rested with her.
Migueles placed the initial Lagos payment on 3 July 2023, recounting that Eduardo had expressed considerable excitement at the time, conveying that a ruling had been finalised and that the appeal had gone in their favour. How Eduardo came to learn the outcome of the appeal remains unclear.
Migueles recounted that an envelope containing $15,000 in cash was placed in his hands after the other party expressed gratitude for his work and noted, as he had previously been informed, that the outcome had benefited them both. Covering daily living costs, outstanding debts, credit card balances, and a trip to Buenos Aires in December 2023 were among the purposes he listed for the funds, though he maintained throughout that none of the money had gone to Ángela, while also pointing to shared household outlays such as rent as part of how the amount was spent.
Reporting by a broadcast outlet also flagged internal contradictions in Migueles's account, noting that on 23 April, in testimony before Prosecutor Marco Muñoz, he had maintained that Vivanco possessed no knowledge of the payments whatsoever, adding in his own words that her integrity was such that any suggestion otherwise would have had severe personal consequences for him. He stated that surgical removal of her reproductive organs would have followed had awareness of the outcome been available to her at the time.
"Prior to the formal proceedings, she had no knowledge of the funds, and contact between the two of them has not taken place in the six months since," he told reporters.
On 6 August, the former magistrate told reporters that none of her ex-partners — Lagos, Vargas, or Silber — had ever brought up the CBM matter in any conversation with her. "Nor Migueles," she added.
