Gustavo Petro’s son will go to trial for alleged illicit enrichment and money laundering

2023-09-25 23:32:03

The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office presented this Monday an accusation for illicit enrichment and money laundering contra Nicolás Petro Burgosfirstborn of the president Gustavo Petroso the president’s son will go to trial.

That organization detailed in a statement that “it filed a document of accusation before the Criminal Courts of the Specialized Circuit of Barranquilla (…) against Mr. Petro Burgos for the crimes charged” and that a robe will designate the judge who will carry out the trial. .

“It is before this judge that the Attorney General’s Office will present all the evidence it has in the respective trial. The Prosecutor’s Office will inform in a timely manner about other legal measures that are intended to be adopted,” the information added.

Petro Burgos was arrested on July 29accused of illicit enrichment and money laundering, but reached a collaboration agreement with Justice, which allowed him to respond to the process in freedom, but apparently he has not fulfilled that commitment.

The Petro Burgos case

The Prosecutor’s Office began investigating Nicolás Petro Burgos since last March for the complaints from his ex-wife, Daysuris Vásquezthat the president’s first-born son, who was a deputy in the Assembly of the Caribbean department of Atlántico, received illicit money for the 2022 presidential campaign.

After his arrest, Petro Burgos acknowledged, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, that received money from former drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierraknown as “the Marlboro man”, and Gabriel Hilsaca Acosta, son of the controversial businessman Alfonso “Turco” Hilsaca.

Part of that money supposedly went into his father’s presidential campaign in 2022, although Petro Burgos assured in an interview with Semana magazine that the president did not know.

The National Electoral Council (CNE) must investigate whether that money was registered by Petro’s presidential campaign and, in this way, determine whether the then candidate knew or not.

Petro has been criticized for distancing himself from his eldest son’s education by stating that he did not raise him, and after his arrest he said that he was hurt by “so much self-destruction” and that he hoped he could “reflect on his own mistakes.” However, weeks later the president visited him at his house in Barranquilla.