Businessman Andrés Salazar Ferro sentenced to four years in prison for the Odebrecht case

The Attorney General's Office, faced with the evidence presented and the voluntary acceptance of charges, a Criminal Judge of the Bogotá Circuit sentenced businessman Andrés Salazar Ferro to four years in prison and declared him responsible for the crime of illicit enrichment of private individuals.

According to the investigation, he reports that the one sentenced, as a representative of the World Group of Engineers S.A.S., was part of the Ruta del Sol II Consortium, received and handed Federico Gaviria Velázquez a significant sum of money for intervening in the award of the Ocaña highway project (Norte de Santander) - Gamarra (Cesar).

In this way, it was demonstrated that Salazar Ferro obtained a capital increase in favor of third parties.

The man must serve his sentence in a prison center. The decision is of the first instance and legal remedies are taken against it.

In the Trial Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, Judge Ariel Augusto Torres condemned former congressman Antonio Guerra for his responsibility in the corruption scandal of the Brazilian multinational Odebrecht. He was charged with: concert to commit an aggravated crime, trafficking in public servant influence and illicit enrichment.

The former senator must serve a sentence of 13 years and 8 months in prison, which in principle the Office of the Procurator had requested to be 20. In addition, to pay fines of more than 1 billion pesos and 225 thousand statutory monthly minimum wages in force at the time of the events. He was also barred from holding public office for 13 years.

This conviction, in addition to legal sanctions, cost BBVA's bank to notify it that it closed its two current accounts, two credit cards and a revolving quota. This is after another judicial disposition, waged by Guerra, against the bank when in the first instance it restricted access to its various accounts since July 25, 2019.

The arguments of the financial institution for this determination are to mitigate reputational risk, prevent crimes, and the fact that a person is investigated for these crimes is grounds for making it impossible to use the financial system.

It should be recalled that Antonio Guerra was part of the group of politicians and businessmen who illegally intervened on behalf of Odebrecht in public contracts, mainly for the works of the Ruta del Sol II, through bribes.

Court evidence indicates that the former senator was part of a group known as “The Bulldozers”, to which Eduardo Zambrano, Federico Gaviria, Bernardo Miguel “el ñoño” Elias also belonged; the latter who testified and confirmed that Antonio Guerra received 200 million pesos in exchange for parliamentary favors for the multinational Odebrecht. In addition, the First Chamber determined that between 2012 and 2017 the former congressman obtained an unjustified capital increase of more than 500 million pesos.

Antonio Guerra was captured in this case on May 21, 2021, but since September of the same year he benefited from the house-to-prison measure while his trial was being resolved and which he enjoyed until the time of the indictment.

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