A taxi driver who reportedly drove two prostitutes involved in the U.S. Secret Service scandal from a Cartagena hotel revealed more details about the incident.
Jose Pena claimed to have seen two women in the company of five agents in an interview with Radio Caracol Thursday.
“They were young women between 25 and 27-years-old who were well-dressed. The truth is they did not advertise that they were sex workers and this is something delicate (…) There is no sign,” he said.
A group of Secret Service agents and military personnel allegedly hired 21 prostitutes in the coastal city of Cartagena ahead of Barack Obama’s arrival for the Summit of the Americas, in a scandal which has rocked the U.S.
Pena says the two women he transported told him they “caught the eye” of two agents in a bar named Tu Candela. They left to go back to the hotel at 4AM, where one woman had sex with an agent and the other did not, “probably because the other man did not have a sexual appetite,” said the driver.
No drugs were involved, he says, but the agents did tell the women that they worked in Obama’s security team – contradicting an account given to the New York Times by the prostitute alleged to be at the center of the scandal.
“I asked them if they were armed and they said no,” Pena said.
Pena claims to have overheard the women discussing the payment dispute thought to have led to the agents’ behavior being uncovered. The women had asked for $140 but the agents offered only $30, said the driver.
“I don’t know why the New York Times said $800, that is false, when the deal was $250,” he said.
“These women are not brothel house women who are going to have adventures. […] They have a good vocabulary, express themselves well. They are not prostitutes but escorts who are well-paid,” stressed the driver.
Cartagena is well known for its sex industry, where prostitution is legal in specified zones.