Right now it’s about illicit enrichment and money laundering, but it could be more. Nicholas Petro, son of the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, appeared yesterday before the Court 74 of control of guarantees in Bogota after being arrested last weekend. But the representatives of the Public Prosecutor made it clear the list of charges against Petro Jr. could be expanded as the investigation progresses.
Along with the president’s son, his ex-wife, Vasquez day. For now it is being investigated for money laundering and violation of personal data. As announced by the Public Prosecutor’s Office in the first hearing of the trial, Vásquez, who publicly denounced the alleged corruption of his former partner, will continue to cooperate with the investigation. The prosecutor Mario Burgos He said it was “some money that went into certain campaigns irregularly, a series of contracts that went into certain campaigns.”
Nicolás Petro is accused of withholding 1,053 million pesos, approximately 244,000 euros, illegally recruited by criminal groups in the Colombian Caribbean to finance his father’s election campaign. President Petro wanted to distance himself from the beginning from the judicial fate that his son could run. Upon hearing the news of his arrest, Petro said on social network X: “As a person and as a father, so much self-destruction hurts me a lot and the fact that one of my children goes to prison.”
The president assured that the prosecutor’s office will have all the resources to carry out the investigation. I wish my son luck and strength. May these events forge his character and may he reflect on his mistakes, “concluded the president, who has so far been breathing serene because there is no evidence that the funds Captured by her little Nicolás they were finally assigned to campaign.
But, undoubtedly, the scandal surrounding a scion he doesn’t seem to feel particularly proud of is an uncomfortable subject for a president who can’t find a way to push forward the ambitious peace and reform agenda with which he convinced the Colombians to elect him president just a year ago. The warning that Vásquez’s future collaboration could reveal irregularities in “certain campaigns” inevitably raises the question of whether one of those campaigns is Petro’s.
Yesterday’s appearance supposes the beginning of a long judicial process and its purpose was to read to the defendants the charges against them. The expectation was highest in court. The hearing started late due to one of the lawyers, but the most spectacular thing was the transfer by plane of the two defendants to the courthouse from the prosecutor’s office bunker, where they have been held since their capture.
At the time of his arrest, Petro’s son had 25 million pesos in cash seized, which were filed with the court. The prosecutors Mario Burgos e Luis Fernando Mercan It is they who have been left in charge of an investigation that now has the attention of all of Colombia.
Petro Jr. and his ex were arrested on Saturday in Barranquilla, where he has lived for years. In this city on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, over the years he has become an influential local politician and the officials of the Technical Investigative Corps (CTI) of the Public Prosecutor’s Office who have been following him for months believe that he wanted to use such a condition to profit with the ascent of his father to the presidency of the Republic.
The investigation into Nicolás Petro’s campaign activities had been known for a long time and he himself had declared when it was known from the media that he had nothing to hide. But revelations from Day Vásquez herself, his seemingly spiteful ex-wife, ended up getting both of them into trouble. Vásquez said in a magazine interview Week that Petro’s son and a brother had embezzled campaign money and this precipitated the arrests. Prosecutor Burgos read the charges to them and warned the defendants: “From now on they will be linked to a criminal case.”
The controversial elevated train from Petro’s life
Gustavo Petro is recognized as the first leftist president of Colombia. Yesterday the prosecutor also gave a detailed account of the expenses of the president’s son in recent years, such as house purchases, rent payments, car purchases and household items of brand. «It does not occur, and it has been demonstrated, with no other economic activity that generates income; In his tax returns submitted for the years 2020 and 2021, he declared that he only had income from his work as a deputy,” added prosecutor Burgos. In the opinion of the prosecutor, it is concluded that Petro Burgos’ estate “is not the result or the fruit of his work, but of constant clandestine and irregular income from 2021 to the end of 2022”.