High-ranking PDI officer resigns following strip-club controversy

SANTIAGO.- Two days after a photo showing the Police Investigations (PDI) Officer Óscar Gutiérrez in the parking lot of a well-known strip club in Vitacura, the general director of the Bureau, Arturo Herrera, announced that the official has resigned from his position.

Herrera also announced that Álvaro Thiele, who is the head of Public Affairs for the PDI as well as the first person to offer an explanation of the case, will be transferred to Intelligence Management for the institution.

The controversy emerged on Tuesday, when former detective Francisco Lapolla, who is charged with handing over information about a drug-trafficking network, told police that he had a photo showing Gutierrez's state-owned vehicle in the parking lot of the strip club.

Yesterday, Thiele asserted that Gutiérrez had indeed been at the location in May of 2008, but said that the visit was made as part of an investigation into Chilean thieves in Europe executed by European police.

Nevertheless, hours later the head of the PDI stated in Valparaíso that the version given initially was "highly inaccurate" saying, "it was not what I told him to say about the matter".