Luis Banchero Rossi

Luis Banchero Rossi (Tacna, October 11, 1929-Chaclacayo, January 1, 1972) was an important Peruvian businessman dedicated to the export of fishmeal and fish oil, who became one of the main promoters of the Peruvian fishing industry until his assassination.

Early Years

Luis Banchero Rossi was born in Tacna on October 11, 1929 into a family of low-income Italian immigrants. He finished his high school studies at the Colegio Nacional de Varones (today I.E.E. Coronel Bolognesi) in Tacna and graduated as a chemical engineer from the National University of Trujillo.

He began to amass his fortune as a seller of countless products: wines from his father's small winery, socks, records, cars, tractors, shipments of pineapple from Trujillo to Tacna. Later, he sold alcohol and motor oil. That was how he got to know the city of Chimbote, when it was not yet the industrial zone that he helped create.

Career

Fishing boats in Chimbote

In 1955, with the profits from the business, he bought his first canning factory for fish and named it Florida. By then, he already had a heritage of one million soles. Later, he purchased his own ships to lower production costs. In this way, his company grew exponentially: he acquired bankrupt fishmeal and fish oil factories and transformed them. He came to own ten fishing complexes and more than three hundred and twenty boats of all sizes, whose function was to fill the warehouses of his factories with raw materials.Near them, he built houses for his workers and schools for his children. Likewise, he established medical posts in the places where his fishing emporium spread.

In 1970, gross income from its fishing industries alone was close to $60 million a year. He diversified his activities and created companies in other areas: Picsa Shipyards (in Callao and Chimbote). Thus, he ventured into sectors such as mining, aviation, soccer (with Club Atlético Defensor Lima) and the media.

In 1962, he founded the daily Correo in Tacna, which began to be published in various provinces of Peru, and the daily Ojo. However, he never bought his own house in Lima, since he lived in an entire apartment that he had rented in the Hotel Crillón in that city.

At the time of his death, Banchero was the Peruvian who had created the most jobs in Peru at that time and had managed to build an entire empire.

Public life

In 1968, he was appointed president of the National Fisheries Society. From this position, he promoted oceanographic scientific research and donated equipment to encourage fish consumption in the population. He was also a director of Banco de Crédito del Perú.He also wanted to run for the presidency of Peru. ^{[citation needed ]}

Murder

Banchero had gone to his country house in Chaclacayo to spend New Year's Eve with his secretary Eugenia Sessarego. There the son of his gardener, Juan Vilca Carranza, murdered him on January 1, 1972. His murderer confessed to the crime and declared that he did it for money. However, some facts cast doubt on his version. Juan Vilca was only 20 years old and was 1.50 m tall compared to the businessman's 1.80 m. Despite the fact that he used a German Luger pistol to reduce Banchero and Sessarego, the difference in size raised doubts about the role of the boy, who beat and stabbed Banchero to death.

Nor was it fully clarified what was the involvement of his secretary, Eugenia Sessarego, who was first branded a lover and, during the trial of the case, ended up being accused as an accomplice of Vilca. She spent five years in prison until she was pardoned on December 21, 1977. Like Vilca once he was released, she led a life withdrawn from the public.

After Banchero's assassination, his companies were nationalized by the military dictatorship of Juan Velasco Alvarado.

Another of the hypotheses about the crime pointed to the trail of Klaus Barbie, a Gestapo officer and fugitive Nazi war criminal. According to historian Nelson Manrique, Barbie was in Chaclacayo en route to Bolivia, when he was identified by Herbert John, Banchero's German collaborator, and both betrayed him. Nazi hunter Serge Klarsfeld testified that between November and December 1971, he received a letter signed by both of them confirming Barbie's identity. Banchero was assassinated just days after this information was made public.

His remains were buried in the El Ángel de Lima Cemetery.

In popular culture

In 1981 the Peruvian film Death of a Magnate was released, directed by Francisco J. Lombardi and starring Orlando Sacha as Banchero and Pablo Tezén as Juan Vilca Carranza.