Five Army Officers Captured by Concert for Aggravated Crime and Other Crimes

In recent hours, the Colombian National Army announced that after a counterintelligence operation, which it carried out jointly with the Police and the Attorney General's Office, it succeeded in the capture of five soldiers of the institution and one individual who had a court order against them.

Those captured are accused of being allegedly responsible for the crimes of concert to commit an aggravated crime, embezzled for appropriation in homogeneous and successive competition and trafficking, manufacture and carrying of weapons, ammunition for restricted use, for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces.

After the joint operation carried out by the above-mentioned institutions, those arrested were placed at the disposal of the competent authorities, “who will advance their prosecution process and will be the ones who will determine whether they are responsible,” the Army explained in a statement, where it also clarified that the capture procedures were carried out in the municipality of Tumaco, Nariño.

“These actions are generated with the purpose of contributing to the strengthening of the institutional policy of transparency and of carrying out actions to prevent and detect criminal behavior by the personnel of the Force, far from institutional principles and values, contrary to the Political Constitution and the Law (...) This Command, in compliance with the constitutional principle of harmonious collaboration between institutions, reiterates its full support to the competent authorities, in order to expedite the investigations that are under way, in order to determine the responsibilities and sanctions that may occur within the framework of due process,” added the military authority.

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Last December 2021, Transparencia por Colombia released its report “This is how corruption moves: an X-ray of corruption events in Colombia 2016-2020″. In this, the organization revealed that the country's Public Force is the entity of the National Government where most of these cases have been registered.

The report, which was obtained after analyzing 2,026 journalistic records of corruption stories in the country, indicated that, of the 311 such events affecting Colombian government entities, 178 were recorded in the Army and the National Police, institutions attached to the Ministry of Defence.

According to Transparencia por Colombia, these cases show “how public servants seek to benefit personally or to a third party, from the provision of security services as a currency of exchange for private purposes. These services have to do with the actions of the military and police forces, ranging from patrolling rural and urban environments, to operations to dismantle criminal groups.”

The investigation further affirmed that these acts of corruption would have to do with the sale of reserved information and weapons for the exclusive use of the security forces to illegal armed groups, when, according to Transparency for Colombia, “such resources should be used to combat illegality.”

In total, according to the Transparency investigation by Colombia, 967 incidents of corruption were reported nationwide, of which 53% of cases were concentrated in five departments: Bogotá (200 facts), Atlántico (88), Antioquia (76), Santander (75) and Valle del Cauca (74).

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