Colombia’s Supreme Court ordered the arrest of former Senator Arturo Char, a member of the powerful Char Clan from Barranquilla, on election fraud charges.
The high court also requested international police organization Interpol to issue a red notice as the former Congress president also has an American passport.
Char is suspected of leading a criminal conspiracy that sought to secure his election and that of two former Char Clan allies in the 2018 congressional elections through fraud.
One of these former allies, former congresswoman Aida Merlano, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for her role in the alleged Char conspiracy in 2019.
Merlano has accused the former senator and his brother, Alex Char, of orchestrating her spectacular escape from prison weeks after she was sentenced.
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The Supreme Court had been investigating Char’s alleged role in vote-buying in his native city on the Caribbean coast since Merlano’s arrest in 2018.
The arrest comes as the Char Clan is campaigning for the reelection of Alex as mayor of Barranquilla in October after a failed presidential bid in 2022.
Char sought to evade a Supreme Court by resigning from the Senate in February, but to no avail.
The investigation into the 2018 election fraud is one of multiple that made the Char Clan one of Colombia’s most controversial regional elites.
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Char’s cousin David admitted in 2019 that his 2002 election to the House of Representatives and his 2006 election to the Senate were due to the involvement of paramilitary groups in his campaign.
The Char Clan, which appeared in a police report on drug trafficking in the 1990’s, has obtained almost absolute control over politics and the economy in Barranquilla and the surrounding Atlantico province.