International · Priscilla Asante

Adviser to Bolivian president arrested for allegedly plotting to kill girfriend

A Senior adviser to the Bolivian president has been arrested for allegedly masterminding the attempted murder of his girlfriend. 

The businessman and political consultant, Fernando Cerimedo, 42, had been working as an adviser to the Bolivian president, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, and was one of the main strategists behind Javier Milei’s campaign in Argentina’s 2023 presidential election. 

Cerimedo landed in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia, and was arrested before boarding another flight reportedly bound for Buenos Aires , Argentina. 

According to police, he was detained on suspicion of ordering a gun attack on Nadia Beller, a Bolivian lawyer who had been in a relationship with Cerimedo who is married since last year. 

Surveillance footage showed two men dressed as delivery riders and wearing helmets open fire on Beller on Monday night outside a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. She survived and was taken to hospital. 

Beller told police , she had been lured to the hotel after receiving anonymous messages promising to hand over evidence of alleged crimes committed by Bolivia’s leftwing former president Evo Morales , who is subject to two outstanding arrest warrants and remains sheltered in a coca-growing region . 

Beller said, '' I believed the attack had been a trap orchestrated by Cerimedo.'' 

The local police commander, Col David Gómez , told local media that investigators were working on the hypothesis that Beller and Cerimedo had been in a romantic relationship and had had a personal dispute in the days before the attack. Cerimedo’s lawyer, Ernesto Giraldes, said his client had not been trying to flee to Argentina and had travelled to Santa Cruz de la Sierra specifically to visit Beller in hospital, and denied he was behind the attack.

The Bolivian president expressed solidarity with Beller and posted on X that his administration will offer zero interference into the investigation.