By Nono Barahona. March 17, 2017
SANTIAGO, Chile. According to a story in a Chilean newspaper, on the eve of his journey to France to seek treatment for terminal cancer, Rafael Garay, 41, would have paid a visit to one of his favorite places: a stripper club in Santiago, Chile's capital. According to the manager and the girls there, he was a regular since approximately 4 years who would spend large amounts of money in a single night drinking in the company of several of the dancers at a time. In the story, the girls said that he behaved like a gentleman but after a few drinks he would turn aggressive. But the girls said that he never asked for sex.
This is just one of the many stories making the rounds in the Chilean media about this man who claimed to be an economist. Other stories have focused on his penchant --strippers aside-- for expensive clothing and luxury cars. Still others have discussed his personality, his senatorial race, the mysterious woman that allegedly would be pregnant with his child.
Until his downfall, he was a respected and trusted financial commentator for several publications, and radio and TV shows, attaining even the status of TV personality.
His announcement in June 2016 that he had brain cancer made instant headlines. He explained that he would be returning the money he managed in his privately-run company. When the money didn't materialize, his investors decided to sue him. But he left the country for France, to seek treatment for his alleged terminal illness.
In Europe, he ended up in Romania, home country of his girlfriend. Reporters took turns to interview the woman's parents, villagers who spoke through an interpreters, offering no clues to the whereabouts of Chile's then most wanted fugitive. But the media never gave up.
Until they found him.
He spoke to the press on the doorway to his Romanian house. Following that, Chilean authorities asked for his arrest. And Romania decided to extradite him.
All these stories have fascinated the Chilean media and Chilean audiences, and yesterday, when he arrived back in Chile in handcuffs to stand trial accused of 36 counts of embezzlement, he was given as much air time by the four major Chilean TV stations as they devoted to the latest wave of wildfires that hit Chile in January and February of this year. Some of them even broadcast live a boring courthouse hearing in which the judge, in the end, decided that, if left loose, Garay would attempt to flee the country and, besides, that he was a danger for society, and for that reason the judge decided to send Garay to jail for the length of the investigation about the alleged embezzlement of which he is accused.
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