Nicolas Gualco, the Argentine boyfriend of Colombian former model Angie Sanclemente, who is currently in prison facing charges of running an international drug trafficking ring, has spoken for the first time about his partner’s arrest.
In an interview with El Tiempo, Gualco said that he believes that Sanclemente is innocent and hopes she will be released soon. He described his girlfriend as “an honest woman” and that he hopes the pair will me able to “move on” when the trial against Sanclemente reaches its conclusion.
Gualco also spoke of his own implication in the alleged crime, saying that he was detained for twenty days but that he was released because “against me they have nothing, not a proof, only the statements of another person.”
The Argentine backed up claims by his girlfriend that it was Gualco’s uncle who was culpable for naming her in relation to the cocaine ring and thus implicating her in the crime.
Prosecutors say that the female voice recorded talking to Gualco’s uncle about the trafficking operation belongs to Sanclemente. This is denied by the accused woman.
According to Gualco, he had gone ahead of Sanclemente to the Argentine capital to make preparations for his girlfriend to meet his family. He said “I ruined her life from the moment I convinced her to come meet my family,” as she had become the perfect scapegoat to take the blame for his uncle’s illegal activity, due to her nationality.
Gualco also said that he had introduced Sanclemente to “Ariel” – the woman who accused Sanclemente of running the ring – but said that the two women had only been together for three hours.
Gualco declared his love for Sanclemente and said “if all of this hadn’t happened, we would have been married on March 17.”
An international arrest warrant was issued in February against the Colombian, a former winner of the Coffee Queen pageant. After being on the run for several months, Sanclemente was captured in Buenos Aires in May. She claims that she was framed for the crime by drug traffickers related to her boyfriend.
Sanclemente is said to have been seeing a Mexican drug lord known as “The Monster” but to have left him at the end of last year to form her own cocaine-smuggling gang.
Since then she had allegedly been heading a complex operation, where women, who were told to look “nice, but not flashy,” would catch flights to various locations once every 24 hours carrying a load of the illegal drug.
Sanclemente’s drug syndicate was exposed when one of her 21-year-old “angels” was found carrying 55kg of cocaine in her suitcase at Buenos Aires airport.
Sanclemente has continuously maintained that she is innocent.