Vladimiro Montesinos

Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres (born May 20, 1946) was the long-standing head of Peru's intelligence service, Servicio de Inteligencia Nacional (SIN), under President Alberto Fujimori. In the year 2000 the infamous "Vladi-videos" came to light through the television: they were secret videos recorded by Montesinos that showed him bribing elected congressmen into leaving the opposition and joining the Fujimorist side of the Congress. The ensuing scandal caused Montesinos to flee the country and prompted the resignation of Fujimori.

Subsequent investigations revealed Montesinos to be at the centre of a vast web of illegal activities, including embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, and drug trafficking. He has been tried, convicted and sentenced for numerous charges. Montesinos had strong connections with the CIA (the United States Central Intelligence Agency) and was said to have received $10 million from the agency for his government's anti-terrorist activities. Montesinos is cousin of the incarcerated terrorist leader Óscar Ramírez Durand, a.k.a. "Feliciano".

Vladimiro Montesinos was born in the city of Arequipa, the capital of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru. His parents, who were of Greek descent and communists, named him after Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union.

In 1965, Montesinos graduated as a military cadet at the US Army's School of the Americas in Panama. A year later, he graduated from the Military School of Chorrillos, in Lima, Peru.

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