The criminal case against Nicolás Petro Burgos, son of current Colombian President Gustavo Petro, took an unexpected turn on August 3. Charged with money laundering and illicit enrichment and in a negotiation process with the Prosecutor’s Office, he would have assured the accusing body that part of the irregular money he received ended up in his father’s presidential campaign. The president denied the illegal contributions and said that they want to use his son to “bring down” the government.
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Since his arrest on July 29, Gustavo Petro’s eldest son has been involved in a corruption scandal that, according to the most recent statements by the Prosecutor’s Office, would now involve his father’s presidential campaign.
In the middle of the hearing of Petro Burgos and his ex-wife Daysuris Vásquez – accused of illicit enrichment and data violation -, where the Prosecutor’s Office would determine the “security measures” of the accused, the prosecutor in charge of the case, Mario Burgos, affirmed that The Colombian ex-deputy had also acknowledged in an interrogation that he would have received large sums of undeclared money and that part of it went to the campaign of the current president.
“Such money, with which he increased his assets unjustifiably, some of them entered his coffers, and others to the presidential campaign of the year 2022where the current president, Dr. Gustavo Petro, was elected,” Burgos mentioned at the hearing held in Bogotá on August 3.
The origin of the ill-gotten money that Petro Burgos would have admitted to having received, according to the version of the Prosecutor’s Office, would be mainly from the accounts of two men: the drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra (‘The Marlboro Man’) and the son of the controversial businessman Alfonso ‘ Turco’ Hilsaca, Gabriel Hilsaca Acosta.
The Nicolás Petro scandal broke out on March 21, when his ex-wife stated for the Colombian magazine ‘Semana’ that the son of the current head of state had received “more than 600 million Colombian pesos (the equivalent of just over $140,000)” from LopesierraColombian politician who served a criminal sentence in the United States for drug trafficking.
In addition to that money, Vázquez pointed out that Petro Burgos received 400 million Colombian pesos -just under 100,000 dollars- from ‘Turco’ Hilsaca and his son Gabriel, controversial Colombian politicians and businessmen pointed out on numerous occasions for cases of alleged corruption.
The money received by Nicolás Petro would have been for the purpose of financing his father’s electoral campaign, however, at the time Vásquez acknowledged that “everything went behind his father’s back” and that the cash “never reached” Gustavo’s campaign Petro, since his son would have kept all the illicit money.
In addition, both Petro Burgos and Vásquez had pleaded not guilty to the charges filed by the Colombian Justice on August 1, where the prosecutor Burgos listed the inconsistencies that existed in the inflows and outflows of money declared by the couple, although the prosecutor He left a door open: if they collaborated with the authorities, a reduction in their potential sentence could be negotiated.
In a total change of course this August 3, although it has not come out of his mouth in public, The Prosecutor’s Office affirms that the eldest son of President Petro accepted, not only that he received money from Lopesierra and the Hilsaca, but that this money would have entered into the financing of the Historical Pact campaigna coalition that led Gustavo Petro to the Presidency.
Gustavo Petro: “There is no one who can end this government other than the people”
During an appearance on the Colombian coast, President Petro discreetly addressed the allegations of the Prosecutor’s Office about possible illicit financing on his way to the Casa de Nariño. Petro affirmed that he “never” has asked any of his children to “commit crimes”, in addition, he added that some political actors are “using their family scars” for the “collapse” of his government.
“You have the absolute certainty that this government ends according to the popular mandate, of no one else, and that is good that it is clear in Colombia, there is no one who can end this government, who is the people themselves and the people gave an order by majority at the polls… pic.twitter.com/bGIv1lVHQP
– Colombian Presidency 🇨🇴 (@infopresidencia) August 3, 2023
Last March, when Daysuris Vásquez accused Nicolás Petro of receiving illegal money, President Petro distanced himself from the upbringing of his son: “He grew up in Córdoba (…) he studied there and did his university there, right; we never really had the opportunity to live together, I didn’t raise him, that’s the reality,” said the president.
Last Saturday, after the arrest of his son, Petro assured: “As a person and a father, so much self-destruction hurts me a lot and the fact that one of my sons goes to jail” and added that he wished him “luck and strength” and that “he can reflect on your own mistakes.
The statements by Petro’s eldest son are not the first shadows in the financing of the presidential campaign. Last June, the magazine ‘Semana’, revealed some audios of the former Colombian ambassador in Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, where he affirms that he would have obtained both votes and money on the Atlantic coast to bring the leftist to power. Some allegations that have not yet been confirmed by the Colombian judiciary.
After achieving a historic achievement for Colombia with the ceasefire agreed with the ELN guerrillas on August 3, the Gustavo Petro Administration finds itself cornered by a scandal that went beyond the familiar where drug trafficking and politicians of dubious reputation they would play a vital role.
With EFE and local media
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