Colombia’s defense minister ordered the security forces and intelligence agencies to step up measures to protect President Gustavo Petro in response to an alleged plot to plant drugs in his car.
In a post on social media platform X, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said that he had ordered the commanders of the military and the National Police to “activate and strengthen” intelligence and counterintelligence capabilities to “anticipate, identify and neutralize any threat that may exist against the president.”
Sanchez added that the Prosecutor General’s Office will be given any and all evidence of conspiracies obtained by the intelligence agencies in order to “bring those behind these threats against democracy to justice.”
The minister also sacked the police commander of Cali, General Edwin Urrego, in response to an anonymous tip that was given credence by the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) and Petro.
Petro said earlier this week that he ordered the retirement of a police general for his alleged involvement in a conspiracy to plant drugs in the president’s car and sabotage a bilateral meeting with US President Donald Trump.
According to newspaper El Tiempo, which was given a copy of the DNI alert, the defense minister’s order were a response to an anonymous email that was sent to Petro’s political party, Colombia Humana.
In the city of Barranquilla, a plot is being hatched against President Petro and Minister Armando Benedetti by Lieutenant Colonel Oscar Moreno Arroyabe and his commander in Barranquilla, in which right-wing politicians such as [Mayor Alejandro] Char are involved. They are seeking to confiscate (planted) drugs and hold the president and minister responsible, saying that they are to blame for the confiscation. Please alert the president because Mr. Moreno Arroyabe has been working with the DEA in the Bogota task force as a liaison.
Anonymous tip
Benedetti was previously linked as the potential victim of a conspiracy to fabricate evidence that would link adversaries of former President Alvaro Uribe, including Senator Ivan Cepeda, to drug trafficking.
Evidence of this plot suggested the involvement of US federal agents working in Bogota and Florida.
Urrego denied any involvement in a plot, which he described as “madness” in an interview with a local radio station.
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