2024-09-02 02:54:36
The 35th criminal judge of Bogotá ordered the preventive detention measure in military establishments for the former director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, Olmedo de Jesus Lopez Martinez, the former deputy director of Risk Management, Sneyder Augusto Pinilla Alvarez, and the contractor Luis Eduardo Lopez Rosero.
This decision was made after evaluating the arguments presented by the Attorney General’s Office, which show the participation of those involved in a corruption scheme that affected the execution of works intended for emergency response and the supply of drinking water in vulnerable communities.
The Ninth Delegate Prosecutor’s Office before the Supreme Court of Justice presented evidence proving that former officials and the contractor manipulated the contracting process at UNGRDdiverting resources intended for critical projects, such as the acquisition of tanker trucks to bring drinking water to La Guajira. Between March 2023 and February 2024, it was identified that the UNGRD provided privileged information to certain contractors, hastily registered companies in the supplier registry, and agreed to pay illegal commissions of up to 14% of the value of the contracts, falsifying documents to legalize these transactions.
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Irregularities detected in 21 contracting orders, totaling a value of 228.884 billion pesosreveal the criminal impact of these actions. Six contracts awarded to López Rosero’s companies were highlighted, which included the purchase of tanker trucks and fire trucks for emergency response in various departments, as well as the supply of drinking water to indigenous communities in La Guajira. One of the most questioned contracts was that of tanker trucks for La Guajira, where an overcost of 14.163 million pesos was detected, of which a significant part was destined to pay bribes, including 724 million pesos to Olmedo López Martínez and 342 million to Sneyder Pinilla Álvarez. The contractor would also have obtained an illegal profit of 7.821 million pesos.
In addition, it was discovered that UNGRD contracted the rental of tank trucks for more than 24,000 million pesos with people close to Sneyder Pinilla Álvarez and assigned another 96,000 million pesos for activities, goods and services to companies recommended by third parties, using resources from an agreement with the National Land Agency (ANT).
The precautionary measure imposed seeks to guarantee the safety of the defendants while progress is made in fully clarifying the facts.
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