Authorities in the north of Colombia arrested nine military members and two civilians on Wednesday for allegedly participating in an arms trafficking scheme that sold or rented military material to criminals.
The arrested were transferred to a detention facility in Bogota because the jail in the northern Colombian town of Monteria where they were initially being held was overcapacity, reported Caracol.
The Prosecutor General’s Office presented audio recordings, documents and other forms of evidence accumulated in a two year investigation that allowed the prosecutor to charge the men.
The 11 implicated in the scandal face charges of conspiracy, arms trafficking and embezzlement. The accused are four active military members, five retired military members and two civilians. They have repeatedly denied their guilt on all charges.
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The accused reportedly removed weapons and military equipment from army bases and sold them to Colombia’s most powerful neo-paramilitary group “Los Urabeños.”
Colonel Robinson Gonzalez del Rio, one of the accused, has already been imprisoned since 2012 for executing civilians to inflate the apparent effectiveness of his military unit.