The Prosecutor's Office called a former member of the Cali cartel to trial for the dispossession of land and forced displacement in Urabá

The Attorney General's Office called José Nelson Urrego to trial on charges of concert for aggravated crime, forced displacement and invasion of areas of ecological importance. This was done within the framework of the investigations carried out on the dispossession of land in the Uraba during the armed conflict.

Urrego is precisely pointed out to intimidate landowners and then send third parties to buy them, although they remained in the name of the front men, the real owner was Urrego who used the places as a refuge to flee the authorities.

Regarding Urrego's whereabouts, he is presumed to be in Spain with his family, since after paying a sentence in Panama for money laundering, he arrived in the national territory in 2018, where he is believed to have later taken a flight to the Iberian country.

But this is not the only approach Urrego had with the bars, in the nineties when the Medellín cartel had disappeared, Caleño drug traffickers kept the mafias afloat. Precisely Urrego was singled out with the Cali cartel, but later he was released due to lack of evidence. Although suspicions were constantly raised by José Urrego, who was singled out by several national media outlets as the leader of the cartel when he was captured.

“The last head of the Cali Cartel fell: José Nelson Urrego, one of the richest men in the world, was wanted by the authorities for almost two years” titled the newspaper El Tiempo in 1998.

Urrego is also linked to one of the most scandalous events in national politics, the 8,000 process, a judicial process against the then President of Colombia, Ernesto Samper, on charges of receiving drug trafficking funding for his presidential campaign. Its origin was the discovery of a file with that number in the Cali Prosecutor's Office, which corresponded to a search made at the offices of a Chilean accountant, Guillermo Pallomari, linked to the Cali Cartel.

This part includes Urrego, since a fax signed by him is recorded and sent to Elizabeth Montoya alias the 'little monkey retrechera' who was told to transfer the sum of money to Samper's campaign and who was killed in 1996.

“Mrs. Eliza, I give you the value of $100,000 dollars to support Dr. Samper's campaign. Please greet him for me,” said the text signed by José Urrego.

Urrego's most recent link to illegality was in Panama, where he stood out as a talented businessman and had even acquired an island, but in 2007 he was captured and in 2013 sentenced to prison for money laundering.

Urrego's whereabouts are of great importance to the country's justice system, since this could clarify one of the most terrifying and regrettable events in national history, and that is the massive forced displacement committed by different armed actors in the different regions of Colombia, in this particular case in Uraba.

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