Delfín Quishpe, the indigenous mayor who achieved fame on YouTube, is convicted of corruption in Ecuador

The justice of Ecuador this Thursday sentenced indigenous mayor Delfín Quishpe to five years in prison for corruption, who became a YouTube hit with a song about the attack on the Twin Towers in New York.

Quishpe, mayor of the Andean town of Guamote, in the province of Chimborazo (center), and two other municipal officials were convicted “to 5 years in prison” by “influence peddling in the context of the health emergency” due to the pandemic, the Prosecutor’s Office reported on its Twitter account.

The ruling also obliges those sentenced to request “a public apology in a local media and the publication of a plaque in the Municipality of Guamote, in which it is established that acts of corruption will not be committed in that jurisdiction,” the agency added in its statement.

According to the prosecuting body, during the Quishpe administration – who was elected mayor of Guamote in 2019 – purchases of biosafety supplies were made with a surcharge in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, which leaves more than 523,000 cases in the country. and 33,112 deaths among a population of 17.7 million inhabitants.

The Prosecutor’s Office maintains that Quishpe paid the supplier of biosecurity items $ 96,608, a price higher than estimated for the order.

Quishpe became known as a singer and rose to fame with a song called “Twin Towers,” which tells the story of a man who lost his partner during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in September 2001 in which nearly 3,000 people died.

In the video clip of the song there are images of the burning towers and the mayor of Guamote shouting “It can’t be, no!”