Colombia’s Truth Commission revealed the names of 423 people and 58 companies that allegedly financed the expansion of paramilitary organization AUC between 1995 and 1998 from Medellin.
The alleged sponsors of the now-defunct paramilitary organization were being investigated by Medellin prosecution investigators after they found the financial administration of paramilitary group ACCU and local crime syndicate “La Oficina de Envigado” in May 1998.
The prosecutors found the paramilitaries’ financial administration during a historic raid of the Padilla parking garage in Medellin just blocks from the city’s city hall.
The raid led to the arrest of the ACCU’s accountant, “Lucas,” who surprisingly walked out of his Medellin jail less than six month later and wasn’t arrested again until last year.
The exposed associates of the paramilitaries were never prosecuted.
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Antioquia society “permeated” by paramilitaries and narcos
According to the Truth Commission, the prosecutors found that the ACCU and La Oficina received more than $225,000 through some 30,000 transactions to 518 bank accounts at 40 banks.
The initial investigation revealed that “almost all of Antioquia’s society was permeated by the paramilitaries that operated hand in hand with drug trafficking,” a former investigator told the Truth Commission.
Among those allegedly contributing funds to the ACCU were some of Medellin’s most prominent corporations like textile corporation Coltejer, social security company Comfenalco, bank Davivienda, Colombia’s subsidiary of multinational car company Toyota and clothing manufacturer Leonisa.
Another 13 of the region’s most renowned drug traffickers and money launderers were among the ACCU’s alleged financiers, the initial investigation found.
At least two of these former drug traffickers, Juan Guillermo Villegas and his late brother Luis Alberto, were business associates of former President Alvaro Uribe at the time, subsequent investigations revealed.
Former prosecution investigator
Another 23 people on the list allegedly were directly involved in the creation of ACCU death squads throughout Colombia at the time.
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“Authorities favored paramilitary operations”
None of the people and the companies in the ACCU’s financial administration were taken to court after the assassinations of multiple prosecution investigators and a series of administrative decisions that ended the investigations.
Truth Commission
At the time, former Prosecutor General and alleged AUC collaborator Luis Camilo Osorio was in charge of the Prosecutor General’s Office.
The sinking of the criminal investigation could have ended the terror of the paramilitaries and their associates, Defense Minister Ivan Velasquez, who led the investigation at the time, said last year.
The fact that this never happened is another “blatant example of the high level of impunity regarding the involvement of civilian third parties in the financing of paramilitary groups in the country,” according to the Truth Commission.
“Lucas” to afraid to name corporate associates
Lucas was arrested in April 2021 for his alleged involvement in the assassinations of three prosecution investigators that were investigating the paramilitaries’ bookkeeping, but “I was forced to withdraw because they were going to kill me,” the paramilitaries’ former accountant told the prosecutor.
“I told you on Tuesday to protect my life. Unfortunately, that interview got me in trouble and you know with who,” Lucas told the prosecution investigator.
The prosecutor said he didn’t know who the former AUC accountant was referring to and to repeat the name of the person allegedly threatening Lucas on record.
“No, no, let’s just leave it at that. Things are fine the way they are,” the AUC’s former accountant said in an apparent attempt to stay alive.