They prosecute more than 121 billion pesos

The Attorney General's Office announced the indictment of charges against Ingrid Cecilia and Gesstner Colobón Medina, Bladimir Ramírez Castro, Jorge Luis Oñate Correa and Pedro Julián Rueda Colobón, who would allegedly be lending their names to legalize money from simulated foreign trade operations.

The research body learned that between July 31, 2010 and October 3, 2017, the five subjects allowed 121 billion pesos drawn from China, the United States, Venezuela, Panama and Turkey to enter different bank accounts. This money was supported as a commodity exported to Venezuela.

With an articulated work between the Specialized Directorate Against Money Laundering and the Tax and Customs Police, PONAL verified that these exports never existed, says Carlos Enrique Vieda Silva, specialized director of the Public Prosecutor's Office.

The authority demonstrated that this mechanism was used to give the appearance of legality to currencies, which would have been monetized with the collection of at least 753 checks. That is why the Prosecutor's Office captured them, in proceedings carried out in three cities: Cucuta, Valledupar and Bogotá; which allowed them to find the leader of the alleged gang, thus preventing the laundering of another $20 million that they intended to enter the country.

The agency charged the 5 prisoners with the crime of aggravated money-laundering, for which the measure of custodial assurance was applied to them, in prison.

In the statement issued by the Prosecutor's Office, they say that these captures and operations are part of the so-called 'Argenta' strategy, which was launched by Francisco Barbosa, the country's attorney general, to “hit the illicit heritage of organized crime”. This plan seeks to issue precautionary measures, for purposes of domain termination and investigations against money laundering; which will be accompanied by “inter-institutional work on the main operational fronts”.

“The intervention strategy 'Argenta' seeks, through the impact of criminal finances, of all these criminal structures, to beat them and prosecute them judicially. The idea is to be able to continue to punish, not only the basic structures, which attack the country with this damn business, but at the same time, with the structures that are behind these businesses,” said Prosecutor Barbosa.

For example, a week ago a prosecutor from the Specialized Directorate for the Extinction of Domain Law imposed precautionary measures on 95 assets that would allegedly be part of the assets of an international drug trafficking network.

The premises occupied by the Prosecutor's Office and the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and INTERPOL, DIJIN, are located in Bogotá, Vichada, Quindío, Meta, Caquetá, Boyacá, Antioquia, Huila, Casanare and some municipalities in Cundinamarca. In total, there would be 76 buildings, between urban and rural; 2 societies and 17 semovinents, whose value could exceed 107 billion pesos, according to investigations delivered by the Prosecutor's Office. This heritage, supposedly, belongs to the illegal structure led by Euripides Cooper Sánchez, captured in April 2015.

In addition, among other proceedings, at the end of last March, a precautionary measure was issued to a property in Bogotá, acquired with money resulting from homicides and other illegal activities, according to the Prosecutor's Office, which would be in charge of 'La Banda de la Negra', who are credited with the murder of footballer Albeiro 'El Palomo' Usuriaga, in 2004, the murder of DAS detective Jhonny Virgilio Cardenas, among some others.

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