In 2016, an Ecuadorian government initiative promised to place a heavy religious sculpture in the Vatican Gardens
The sculpture carved in stone of the Virgin of El Cisne mysteriously disappeared during the government of Rafael Correa.
The initiative to enthrone a sculpture of the Virgin of El Cisne in the Vatican It was conceived as a scam. The Virgin of El Cisne is a Marian invocation in Loja, in southern Ecuador, 428 years old and with approximately 5 million devotees from Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, which was used by the government of Rafael Correaas an electoral action to manipulate the faith of believers before the 2017 presidential elections.
An enthronementconsists of placing an image or iconographic representation on a preferential place to be venerated or admired. In 2016, a year before the Correismo candidates Lenín Moreno and Jorge Glas won the presidential elections in Ecuador, an apparently citizen initiative gained momentum with the support of former Vice President Jorge Glas, who is now in prison for corruption offences. The then-legislators of the province of Loja, Verónica Arias, who today works as an Andean parliamentarian, Miriam González and Richard Farfán, all correists. Even María Alejandra Vicuña’s adviser, also an assembly member for Correa’s party and who would later become Moreno’s vice president to replace Glas, was the one who led the scam. High officials of the Correa government were implicated and some of them still hold public office.The event was hidden under lock and key and there are still no answers.
In June 2016, Verónica Arias, who at that time was an assembly member by Loja, announced in a public event that a replica of the Virgin of El Cisne would be placed in the Vatican Gardens “so that her legacy rests on this site as well as other images of the Virgin from other parts of the world.” p>The then legislator promoted the trip of several faithful to deliver the sculpture of a virgin to the Vatican. The sculpture disappeared and the trip never took place.
Arias said that this action would allow religious tourism to increase in Ecuador and added that “as a representative of the province of Loja before the Ecuadorian parliament I am convinced that this initiative that we promote It will serve as a correct incentive for the Catholic world to learn about this tradition and visit our country.” In that same speech, Arias assured that there would be a trip where “thousands of Lojanos from all latitudes will travel to the Vatican where a delegation hopes to be received by Pope Francis to make the delivery official“. The trip would take place in September 2016. Arias acknowledged that he was promoting the initiative.
The people who were in charge of this supposed international operation were Diego Riofrío Jaramillo , then adviser to María Alejandra Vicuña, and Yuber Cuenca, owner of a travel company that took people to visit the Holy Land. Riofrío Jaramillo presented himself as president of the management committee for the enthronement of the image of the Virgin of El Cisne in the Vatican, according to some communications.
On the left, Diego Riofrío Jaramillo with the sculpture of the Virgin. On the right, dressed in yellow Diego Riofrío Jaramillo (in the center) and Yuber Cuenca.
On a Facebook page, officially created to report on the making of the sculpture and the trip, Riofrío < b>Jaramillo appears in several photos next to the sculpture carved in stone 1.90 meters high and weighing one ton.In some photographs he is accompanied by Yuber Cuenca. In that social network, the trip to deliver the sculpture to the Vatican was also promoted. A message at the end of one of the promotions asks those interested to write an email to the address of Riofrío Jaramillo. In addition, the page advertised the sale of souvenirs related to the enthronement, such as jackets and t-shirts.
The stone sculpture of the religious image was made by the Quito artist Luis Viracocha and his brother. The imposing work toured some cities in the country, according to reports posted on the website of the Ministry of Tourism , in the press archives and in the photographs that some parishioners uploaded to their social networks. Then the huge and heavy sculpture mysteriously disappeared.
Publication posted on the Facebook page of the association of residents of Lojano in Quito where a communication sent by Diego Riofrío Jaramillo requesting support for the enthronement of the image is reproduced.
When the image vanished,the trip that had been postponed was also cancelled. three times. The people who paid for the tour to the Vatican and for the paperwork to obtain the European visa sued Yuber Cuenca for fraud in November 2016. Cuenca was sentenced to seven years in prison for defrauding several people, some of them elderly. In addition to the sanction of confinement, the court ordered Cuenca to pay a fine of USD 7,320, and to return the money delivered to each of the victims identified in the process, “plus the statutory interest generated from the date of delivery of said securities, until their total cancellation, according to the detail that appears in the Sixth recital, to which is added the amount of USD 2,000 for moral damages for each one of the injured parties”, according to the sentence.
Although Riofrío Jaramillo made arrangements with the high authorities, asked for support from civil society organizations, convened informative meetings and promoted the trip, the devotees gave their money to Yuber Cuenca. Some did it personally and others to the Cuenca bank account. Riofrío Jaramillo did not intervene publicly, but Cuenca did.
In a citizen link, former Vice President Jorge Glas described the scam around the stone sculpture of the Virgin of El Cisne as “a very important act”
On July 30, in a citizen link, as Correa’s television space was called and which was broadcast every Saturday, Jorge Glas informed the attendees about the trip to the Vatican and asked for an explanation from Yuber Cuenca, who was in the public. In four minutes, Cuenca thanked a list of high-ranking Correismo authorities for supporting the initiative. When he finished his speech, Glas, acting as the vice-presidency of the Republic, described the initiative as a “very important act for us” and publicly told Cuenca to count on his support. < /p>
During the trial against Cuenca, only one of the victims mentioned Riofrío Jaramillo and assured that she saw him in one of the informative meetings about the alleged trip to Rome.
The defense of Cuenca maintained that the tour to the Vatican had the endorsement of the Ministry of Tourism and the Vice Presidency of the Republic and that “for reasons beyond the defendant, no was able to complete this tour.”In his statement, Cuenca assured that the money he received was used for the logistics of the trip, to print books about the enthronement and to pay the sculptor. In his testimony, Cuenca assured that Riofrío Jaramillo was “who had been given the commission to make the stone image” . In an interview with the sculptor Viracocha in 2017, he assured that he was never paid for making the sculpture and that he was even asked for money to take him and his relatives to deliver the work to the Vatican. < /b>
Communication delivered by the bishop of Loja to Diego Riofrío Jaramillo on the enthronement.
In his statement before the criminal court, Cuenca said that in “Quito he had a call from the secretary of the Minister of Tourism Javier Alvarado who invited him to a meeting to be able to promote the project.” Cuenca assured that he met with the then Minister and that he gave him a copy of the project together with the approval of Monsignor Fausto Trávez, who at that time was President of the Ecuadorian Episcopal Conference, “in order to coordinate the pilgrimage in the country ”.After that meeting, Cuenca “returned to Loja with Dr. Diego Riofrío” according to his own court testimony.
The trial against Yuber Cuenca and one of his nephews began in November 2016. While the process against Cuenca was taking place, in January 2017 the presidential campaign began. The Correismo candidates were Lenín Moreno and Jorge Glas, who took office in May of that same year. Three months after Moreno’s term began, the court found Cuenca guilty of fraud. Diego Riofrío Jaramillo was not heard from again until 2018, when María Alejandra Vicuña replaced Jorge Glas after he was removed from office and convicted of corruption.
News about the tours of the sculpture carved in stone posted on the website of the Ministry of Tourism. That communication reports on the trip to the Vatican.
Riofrío Jaramillo was an advisor to Vicuña in the Vice Presidency of the Republic. Between June 2019 and May 2020, Riofrío Jaramillo, was the general coordinator of the Comprehensive Addiction Prevention System of the Municipality of Quito, during the mayoralty of Jorge Yunda, also a Correísta, who was dismissed for corruption in 2021.
When the enthronement of the image was announced, the Correísta politicians, and even the religious authorities, welcomed the project, supported it and they celebrated it publicly, but when the fraud suit began, everyone seemed to collude in silence.
The latest information on the trip and enthronement was published on the Facebook page of the initiative. There it was specified that “it has been decided that the event will take place in 2017”. However, nothing happened either.
Until today the location of the image is not known. An image of these characteristics would never be installed in the Vatican Gardens, as announced in 2016, because in the 23 hectares that comprise those gardens there are only sculptures from the medieval era made of Carrara marble. There is no record of an image other than those features being installed.