Bogotá, March 2. Congressman Nicolás Petro, son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, has been accused by his ex-wife, Day Vásquez, of receiving money from drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra, aka the Marlboro man, for his father’s presidential campaign, which however never took place to bear fruit on this destiny.
Vásquez assured in an interview with Semana magazine that the Marlboro man had given the son of Petro, deputy in the Assembly of the Caribbean department of Atlántico (north), “more than 600 million pesos (about 124,700 dollars today ‘hui) for the father’s campaign”.
“It never reached the countryside legally because he kept that money, and others too,” added the woman, who mentioned that Nicolás Petro also received 200 million pesos (about $41,500). of businessman Alfonso “Turco” Hilsaca who did not either. They went to the countryside.
The charges became known hours after President Petro issued a statement asking the prosecutor’s office to investigate his brother Juan Fernando and Nicolás, who is his eldest son, without giving further details.
“Due to the information that circulates in public opinion about my brother Juan Fernando Petro Urrego and my eldest son Nicolás Petro Burgos, I ask the Attorney General of the Nation to carry out all the necessary investigations and to determine possible responsibilities”, has said the president.
Petro referred to alleged meetings in prisons where, according to some versions, people around him posed as members of the government to contact criminals and offer to include them in the “total peace” program in exchange of money, a suspicion that belongs to his brother but to which his son has not been linked.
PETRO’S SON DEFENSE
The president’s son assured his side in a press release that, contrary to what his ex-wife claims, he had no relationship with the “Marlboro man” nor with the “Turk” Hilasca, people whom he says he does not know.
Nicolás Petro added that he had “not received any type of support, neither direct nor indirect” from these people, which is why he requested “an investigation to clarify and protect my honor and my reputation”.
Lopesierra, the Marlboro man, amassed a fortune on the Atlantic coast in the 1980s trading in contraband cigarettes and liquor and was elected senator in 1994, the same year US authorities claimed that he was part of a criminal network dedicated to money laundering.
He was captured in 2002 and extradited to the United States in 2003, where he was sentenced to 25 years in prison for drug trafficking but was released in 2021, before serving the full sentence handed down by a US judge. District of Columbia.
Alfonso Hilsaca Eljaude, the Turkish Hilsaca, is another controversial businessman whom the investigations of the prosecutor’s office associate with criminal organizations, including paramilitary groups and mafias of administrative corruption, for which he was deprived of liberty on several occasions. occasions.
In 2009 he was captured after being linked to the massacre of four people in Cartagena de Indias, but was released after eight months for lack of evidence. In 2010 he returned to prison after being accused by various paramilitary leaders of collaborating with them and in 2014 he was again arrested for another murder. Whenever he was free.
SEE IN ALL TRANQUILITY
Petro’s son also assured that “it is a mistake of the presidency to link me to such a serious problem related to corruption by criminal organizations that seek to hinder total peace”.
In his statement today, President Petro recalled that “the only official who has government approval to have contact with outlaw organizations for the sole purpose of seeking peace is the High Commissioner for peace, Danilo Rueda”.
According to the president, “anyone who wants to interfere in this goal (of total peace) or to take personal advantage of it, has no place in the government, even if he is a member of my family”. EFE
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