LA PAZ: Bolivia’s gold-and-emerald presidential medal, which dates back to the foundation of the republic in 1825, was stolen while its custodian visited a brothel, local media said on Wednesday, quoting a police report.

The custodian, identified by police as Lieutenant Roberto Juan de Dios Ortiz Blanco, had been meant to deliver the historic medal and a tricolour sash to the president to wear during his speech on Wednesday in the city of Cochabamba, according to a police report quoted by local media.

But his flight late Tuesday was delayed and the officer instead decided to visit various brothels, the report said.

“I entered a number of these different establishments (brothels) but then returned to where I left my motor car,” the report quoted the custodian as having told police. “When I got there my backpack, which held the emblems of the nation, had been taken.”

President Evo Morales — who last wore the emblems on August 6, during celebrations marking Bolivia’s 193rd anniversary — appeared at the Cochabamba military parade on Wednesday with neither medal nor sash.

The medal was a gift from the Congress of the recently formed Bolivian republic to its founder in 1825 and was first used in 1826 as the presidential medal by Antonio Jose de Sucre.

Published in Dawn, August 9th, 2018