The election of the new general director of the PDI, Eduardo Cerna Lozano, was very well received within the institution, where last night different detectives expressed their satisfaction with the President’s decision, given the profile of Sergio Muñoz’s successor, who mixes operationality and academy, which was precisely what the Government was looking for, where there was the conviction that the new director must also be far from the internal circles of power. Different police sources consulted in this regard agreed that Cerna “is a gentleman” in his treatment of him and that, for this reason, he has always enjoyed a lot of respect in the institution, especially from his subordinates. This treatment, they say, has also allowed him to always relate in a good way with the authorities of the Executive Branch.
Before joining the PDI, Cerna studied several years of Civil Engineering at the University of Concepción, where he is from, and during his career he completed a series of higher-level studies, including a master’s degree in Strategic Intelligence at Anepe. In addition, he recently completed his master’s degree in Higher Management at the University of Barcelona, although he still needs to complete the degree. He has six diplomas, completed in Chile and abroad, among which is one on organized crime, which was also one of the subjects that mattered a lot in La Moneda that it was within the scope of management of whoever took over as head of the PDI. .
As a “street” police officer, his resume records work in the judicial police stations (current Criminal Investigation Brigades) of San Miguel and Concepción, in addition to the Bicrim of Santiago, where he took office in 2015, for which he had to participate in several roundtables. I work with the then mayor of the capital, the current Minister of the Interior and Public Security, Carolina Tohá.
He had to investigate organized crime in the towns of La Legua and La Victoria, when he was part of the Southern Task Force, but to the classic police training – so to speak – he added an unusual specialty in the civil police: tactical operations. .
With several SWAT courses (Special Weapons and Tactics) in the force, for a time he was in the bodyguard of former director Arturo Herrera and later became part of one of the newest units of the PDI, the Metropolitan Tactical Reaction Brigade (BRTA) and, later, he was head of the Prefecture of Special Operations, on which the BRTA depends. In fact, the photograph that heads this note shows him standing, when he was prefect of Special Operations.
Those who know him say that on his desk he has an acrylic figure of a detective dressed in the black suit worn by the BRTA, which is the unit that today heads all the risk operations carried out by the PDI, and which is proud to have been the manager of what is now the Department of Underwater Operations, the same unit that – among other things – carried out the underwater surveys in Lake Ranco, after the accident that cost the life of former president Sebastián Piñera.
His police career, however, became mixed with other types of functions. He was deputy director of the School of Police Investigations and director of the Professional Training Center and, later, he took on a “hot iron”: the National Directorate of Logistics and Large Purchases, a very sensitive place, given the volume of money that is transacted, the special characteristics of the suppliers with which the PDI is related and the type of “commodities” that are acquired, including weapons and ammunition.
Within the PDI, Cerna is perceived as someone far from the internal “lots.” Despite being part of his High Command, he was not close to Muñoz, and he is not known to have any political sensitivity. This morning he will be received at 8:30 a.m. by Minister Tohá and the Undersecretary of the Interior, Manuel Monsalve.
The appointment of Eduardo Cerna also means the automatic retirement of the three officers who were above him in seniority: Claudio González Hofstetter, Lautaro Arias and César Cortés.
In hierarchical order, then, Cerna is now followed by the prefect general Jorge Sánchez and the prefect inspectors Alex Schwarzenberg, Paulo Contreras, Ricardo Gatica, Consuelo Peña, Jorge Valdés, Hugo Haeger, Erwin Clerc, Leonel Fuentes, Maricela Gárate, Rodrigo Fuentes and Cristian Lobos, in the first 12 antiques of the institution.