Colombia’s prosecution arrested the policemen who accidentally discovered a 2018 election rigging plot between the far-right party of President Ivan Duque and drug traffickers.
The arrest of Major Yefferson Tocarruncho and Sergeant Wadith Velasquez went almost unnoticed because chief prosecutor Francisco Barbosa caused a political hurricane by ordering the arrest of Antioquia Governor Anibal Gaviria on vague corruption charges.
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Not the suspects, but the investigators in jail
Former President Alvaro Uribe (L) and late mafia associate Luis Guillermo Hernandez. (Image: Instagram)
Ironically, the investigators who discovered the election fraud scandal are now in jail while those suspected of plotting to rig the 2018 elections are free, with the exception of Jose Guillermo Hernandez, a.k.a. “El Ñeñe,” who was murdered in Brazil in May last year.
Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez accused the prosecution of purposely trying to divert the attention away from the election fraud scandal known in Colombia as “Ñeñepolitics.”
To divert attention from the arbitrariness and cover-up of Ñeñepolitics, they turn the sending of Governor Anibal Gaviria to jail into a media show. They decided to make the local leaders the scapegoat for the government’s failures and the abuses of the prosecutor’s office.
Bogota Mayor Claudia Lopez
Allegedly corrupt prosecutor charging cops, protecting questionable colleague
Prosecutor Daniel Hernandez (Image: W Radio)
According to prosecutor Daniel Hernandez, the officials of the National Police’s intelligence unit DIJIN were illegally wiretapping five cops exactly when they found that the money launderer of drug trafficker Marquitos Figueroa was plotting with Duque’s Democratic Center party to rig the elections.
Ironically, the prosecutor was accused of trying to frustrate a corporate spying investigation in January and, according to Blu Radio, is being investigated by the Superior Judicial Council on charges of illegal wiretapping.
According to the controversial prosecutor, the colleague who signed off on the policemen’s wiretap requests, Jenny Andrea Ortiz, was deceived by the police investigators.
Ortiz is the prosecutor who reportedly decided not to investigate the evidence Figueroa’s drug trafficking organization had ties to Colombia’s ruling party.
The laziness or corruption — or both — of the prosecution is deplorable. I wonder why the 21st Prosecutor of Organized Crime (Jenny Andrea Ortiz Ladino) is on the side of organized crime. There has to be an answer.
Journalist Gonzalo Guillen
Five years after Figueroa was arrested in Brazil, the drug lord has yet to be convicted and on several occasions was almost released because Ortiz allowed legal time limits to expire.
Politics before justice?
The arrest of the police officials is the latest controversy in the investigations that has all but destroyed the reputation of Barbosa, one of the president’s best friends.
The chief prosecutor was accused of withholding evidence Congress needed to investigate Duque and the Supreme Court needed to investigate former President Alvaro Uribe.
Barbosa’s office is supposed to be investigating other suspects in the case, like Uribe’s former personal assistant Maria Claudia Daza, but the prosecution is apparently more interested in prosecuting the police investigators who discovered the biggest election fraud scandal in recent memory.
