Colombia’s prosecution and Comptroller General’s Office are investigating what happened to thousands of assets that apparently went missing after they were seized by law enforcement.
The authorities began the investigation after President Gustavo Petro warned that the state-run company that manages seized assets, the Special Assets Society (SAE), could be involved in “one of the worst acts of corruption in history.”
The SAE’s newly appointed CEO, Daniel Rojas, confirmed that thousands of assets registered to his firm only exist on paper.
Rojas additionally said that the SAE’s inventory of assets lacks information about the condition and estimated market value of real estate in custody of the company.
Last but not least, real estate properties in custody of the SAE would be occupied illegally.
The alleged chaos spurred Rojas to demand investigations, the SAE chief said last month.
The agency was already under fire over the alleged mismanagement of FARC assets surrendered by the former guerrillas following a 2016 peace deal.
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Former SAE chief blames predecessor
In a press statement, former SAE CEO Andres Avila said Monday that the discrepancy is due to a database of seized assets the company received from the now-defunct National Narcotics Directorate (DNE) in 2014.
Former President Juan Manuel Santos dissolved the DNE after finding that the agency was giving away seized assets to politicians loyal to former President Alvaro Uribe instead of selling them.
Former DNE director Carlos Albornoz was sentenced to 19 years in prison last year for turning the DNE into an extremely expensive piñata.
Following the dismantling of the DNE, the SAE became the entity in charge of managing assets seized by law enforcement, including those in custody of the dismantled agency.
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The SAE mess
According to Avila, the DNE provided the SAE received an excel sheet with 19,819 real estate properties, 1,700 companies and 12,000 vehicles allegedly in custody of the agency.
The former SAE boss said that his company was only able to locate 5,000 of the vehicles in the DNE database.
The excel sheet additionally lacked the information that would allow the verification of the real estate properties and firms allegedly in custody of the DNE, said Avila.
Avila said nothing about the other alleged irregularities and failed to explain why he never said anything about the fictitious assets until after his successor rang the alarm.