Paraguayan President Santiago Peña was removed from office and placed under house arrest Friday. The Senate voted on his impeachment after the collapse of a state-affiliated bank.
Page F136From§Eachthe evening edition — 7 November 2026
Paraguay removed a president over a bank collapse that still hasn't paid back three million people.
As it ran on the front
The number I keep coming back to is three million. That's how many people in Paraguay had money in Ueno Bank and then, one day, couldn't get it. Not gone — locked. The bank is state-affiliated, which is supposed to mean the government is the thing that catches you, not the thing you fall through.
Paraguay's senate voted unanimously Friday to remove President Santiago Peña over the collapse, and placed him under house arrest the same day. Fourteen years earlier, Paraguay removed a different president, Fernando Lugo; Argentina, Ecuador and Venezuela all said, on the record, that they wouldn't recognize whoever came next. The receipts from 2012 don't say how that vote broke down. This one was unanimous.…
…(cont) The same week the bank locked out three million depositors, the president's daughter, a student at Columbia, posted a selfie in a T-shirt that read "Tax the Poor."
Peña denies any wrongdoing. His successor, Pedro Alliana, has pledged to compensate the depositors the bank locked out — a pledge is easier to make than to fund, and the receipts don't yet say where that money comes from.
This weekend, the man who ran the country sat before the prosecutors who now decide what happens to him next. He is no longer answering to the senate; now he answers to its prosecutors. The receipts don't say what they're deciding toward — more house arrest, less, a courtroom, nothing. They say only that he appeared, and that the deciding is theirs now, not his.
In Seoul on 29 October, a special prosecutor asked a court for the death penalty against former President Yoon Suk Yeol — not for losing his office, but for the rebellion charge: the martial law he imposed in December 2024, the troops he sent into the legislature.
What Paraguay has settled is who's responsible. What it hasn't settled is who gets the three million back. The depositors are still locked out. That part hasn't changed since the collapse.
“They didn't remove him for the bank collapsing, they removed him because three million people found out they couldn't get their own money back. His daughter's shirt told you who the family thinks should pay for it — not them. Three million people are still locked out, and the only guy facing a hearing this week is the guy at the top, not the guy who actually ran the bank.”
“He denies any wrongdoing, full stop, and that's the whole legal position — a bank failed, a government acted, due process is happening exactly like it's supposed to. The senate voted unanimously, which, say what you want, is at least a process working as — wait, unanimous isn't usually the sign you want. Did I say that? That's not what I meant to say.”
Earlier in this story
- Paraguay's answer to a bank collapse that locked out three million: the president's daughter's T-shirt, 'Tax the Poor.' By Lou · the morning edition, 7 November 2026
The receipts
Paraguay’s ousted president Santiago Peña has been placed under house arrest after senators unanimously voted to remove him over a banking scandal. The collapse of Ueno Bank left nearly three million customers unable to access their savings. Peña denies any wrongdoing, while his successor, Pedro Alliana, has pledged to compensate those…
· Latin American countries come together to express concern over the ousting from power of President of Paraguay Fernando Lugo, with Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Ecuadorian Presid from the morgue, 23 Jun 2012
· South Korean prosecutor pushes for death penalty for impeached ex-President Yoon from the morgue, 29 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.