It was August 7, 2022 when the new president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, took office. A radical turn for the Latin American country before the assumption for the first time of a left-wing government. Almost a year later, the former guerrilla fighter arrives at his first anniversary with worn-out popularity and with a scandal starring his own son splashing him fully.
Nicolás Petro Burgos, who is also a deputy of the Assembly of the Department of the Atlantic, was arrested last weekend as part of an investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office that accused him of illicit enrichment and money laundering. His ex-wife Daysiris Vásquez would also be involved. Since then, Colombia remained expectant before the next steps of justice. On Tuesday, the judge’s accusation arrived at a public hearing held in Bogotá. The point is that the president’s eldest son would have received money from drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra, the marlboro manand Alfonso Hilsaca, andthe Turkishwhich in the past was linked to paramilitaries.
The biggest blow for President Petro and, therefore, for Colombia came on Thursday, when Petro Burgos revealed that allegedly illicit money entered his father’s electoral campaign. “Actually, some of said money entered their coffers [de Nicolás Petro] and others to the 2022 presidential campaign in which our current president, Dr. Gustavo Petro Urrego, was elected,” the first prosecutor delegated to the Superior Court of Bogotá, Mario Burgos, said at the hearing, according to Efe.
Adding fuel to the fire was the confession revealed by the Vásquez Prosecutor’s Office, who in an audio taken from a phone call says: “Here he is stealing, I am stealing and we are all stealing, in case he wants to accuse me of being a thief.” . This forceful phrase corresponds to a conversation with Máximo Noriega, publishes Week -the same Colombian magazine that published in March the audios of Vásquez that triggered the investigation. Noriega is a friend of Petro son and until recently a candidate for Governor of the Atlantic.
Faced with such revelations, the Colombian president published a statement on Twitter this Friday in which he shows his “pain” for the “alleged irregularities.” To which he added that he trusted justice and that “nothing and no one can stop the fight of a lifetime against all forms of corruption, and the Government will continue its task and commitment for a better Colombia without distractions.”