A retired Colombian colonel was charged with providing weapons to a non-existent FARC unit at the center of the 2006 “false demobilization” scandal.
Colonel Hugo Alfredo Castellanos was charged with embezzlement, procedural fraud and arms possesion and trafficking by a prosecutor from the National Anti-Corruption Unit, for his alleged role in delivering weapons to the fake Cacica Gaitana FARC front.
He’s accused of liaising between the military and Colombia’s ex-Peace Commissioner, Luis Carlos Restrepo, in a conspiracy to pay a group of homeless people to train and act like guerrillas before surrendering to authorities.
Colonel Castellanos was an alleged key link in delivering weapons via helicopter from Santa Marta in northern Colombia to Bogota, before travelling overland to the department of Tolima where the fake unit’s surrender took place.
Restrepo is currently overseas, having fled the country before he could be arrested.
