Former President Alvaro Uribe and President Ivan Duque allegedly involved multiple crime families in a plot to rig Colombia’s 2018 elections, a wiretap released on Sunday revealed.
In the wiretap, Uribe’s former PA Maria Claudia Daza informed the brother of of late money launderer Jose Guilllermo Hernandez that the former president called imprisoned former Governor Lucas Gnecco to seek his support and that “Ivan would have done the same.”
The notoriously criminal in-laws of one of Colombia’s most famous journalists
In the recording made public by Semana columnist Maria Jimena Duzan, “El Goyo” Hernandez additionally recommended Daza to get House Representative Tina Soto (Conservative Party), a cousin of drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa, involved.
Uribe’s former PA, who resigned after the election fraud rigging plot became public, said she had the support of Rosa Valdeblanquez, the daughter of a convicted narco in Uribia, a town in La Guajira.
After Daza told the money launderer’s brother she needed publicity ahead of a campaign trip by Duque to the northern province, “El Goyo” assured her that he would take care of filling the northern province with posters.
“I will pay for everything,” the money launderer’s brother told Uribe’s PA.
Duque’s Democratic Center party has always denied it was involved in these aggressive and illegal poster campaigns that require major logistics. According to Duzan, however, a source within Duque’s Democratic Center party said this illegal campaigning did effectively take place in 15 towns in La Guajira and the neighboring Cesar province.
The latest recording adds another nail in the coffin to the legitimacy of Duque, who is already investigated by Congress and the National Electoral Council over his alleged collusion with the mafia to win the election.
Uribe is investigated by the Supreme Court, which has access to the wiretap released by Duzan and others in which the former Medellin Cartel associate is alleged to be masterminding the election rigging.