Bogota.- The scandal over the alleged illegal financing of the campaign of Colombian President Gustavo Petro may affect other politicians who were not mentioned in the hearing in which the prosecutor in the case accused Nicolás Petro Burgos, Jr. of money laundering and illicit enrichment. mayor of the president
One of those politicians could be Álex Char, a member of one of the most important political clans in the country, who for 16 years has been pulling the strings of political and economic power in Barranquilla and in the department of Atlántico, of which it is the capital, according to a publication. this Sunday a report from Cambio magazine.
In one of the conversations between the president’s son and his ex-wife Daysuris Vásquez, on December 19, 2021, which was not mentioned by the prosecutor Mario Burgos in the court hearings in recent days, Nicolás Petro Burgos told his then partner : «Ask for gifts from A. CH.».
The conclusion of the head of the Judicial Police, Víctor Alfonso Forero, who intervened in the investigation is that “it is inferred that the person mentioned as A. CH., is Alex Char (…)” who would be close to Daysuris “despite being opponent of the Petro, both the president and his son, who was a deputy to the Atlantic Assembly, a position he resigned yesterday as part of the agreement with the Prosecutor’s Office.
Álex Char has been governor of Atlántico and mayor of Barranquilla on two occasions, a position that he aspires to win again in the elections on October 29.
According to the report echoed by the magazine, a day after that conversation, “Nicolás asks Daysuris to review the” bank account “because” he had received some deposits “, but the investigators do not specify if any of those” were the ‘gift’ requested from the Char».
In another conversation, this time between Vásquez and Char, the latter tells him “Leo is going to take you something”, “5 points”, which could be five million pesos (about $1,250 today), according to an explanation that Daysuris gives him. Nicholas Petro.
DANGEROUS RELATIONSHIPS
“The relations that Daysuris and Nicolás had on the Caribbean coast were with all social and political sectors, among these was Mr. Alex Char, who on May 11, 2022 apparently sent five million pesos in cash to Daysuris,” says the researcher’s report published by Cambio.
According to the magazine, in another conversation the next day, Nicolás Petro asks Vásquez: “Did he really send you five points, love?” and she responds with a photo of a wad of 50,000 bills. pesos.
However, Char’s lawyer, Iván Cancino, consulted by Cambio, assured that this information is false and that the person saved on Vásquez’s phone as “A. CH.” It does not correspond to his client.
“That is not true. We will raise the right of petition to the Prosecutor’s Office to verify who owns that number associated with the name Alex Char,” Cancino told the magazine.
The Prosecutor’s investigation has focused on the money allegedly received by Petro Burgos from the drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra, known as “the Marlboro man”, and from Gabriel Hilsaca Acosta, son of the controversial businessman Alfonso “Turco” Hilsaca, part of whom allegedly He went to the presidential campaign.
That revelation sparked the biggest scandal in the government of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, who just tomorrow celebrates one year in office.
“The campaign did not receive any money of an illegal nature and I found out about what happened from a meeting I had with Nicolás’s ex-wife in my office just a few months ago when I asked that they investigate my son,” Petro said yesterday.
For his part, his son assured in an interview with Semana magazine that neither his father nor the campaign manager, Ricardo Roa, “knew of the money Daysuris and I received from Santander Lopesierra and Gabriel Hilsaca.”
