The Public Prosecutor’s Office has linked 16 other people in the process of this corruption scandal

Attorney General Francisco Barbosa announced the involvement of 16 people in the Odebrecht scandal in Colombia. The head of the investigative body confirmed that with this decision there will already be 60 people facing criminal proceedings in the country for receiving and processing bribes sent from Brazil in favor of this multinational construction company, with infrastructure contracts.

This announcement came after meeting with Public Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice, In it, he provided an assessment of the measures taken to combat corruption. “Tomorrow there will be 16 new accused, so we will already investigate 33 charges,” Barbosa revealed.

Likewise, he warned that in 2019, the Odebrecht case was nearly closed in Colombia. However, after several investigative missions, they were linked to other people who have knowledge, participation and responsibility in this corruption network, for which many former members of Congress, businessmen, contractors, individuals and even a former deputy minister have already been convicted.

“I dedicated myself to the country in that fight After the meeting, which took place in the Palace of Justice, central Bogota, the prosecutor said, “

In December 2016, Marcelo Odebrecht, the president of the multinational corporation, admitted before the US judicial authorities the strategy of paying bribes in all Latin American countries to receive public works contracts directly. In the case of Colombia, it was indicated that $11 million was transferred to receive contracts related to the Ruta del Sol II project.

To achieve their goals, large sums of money were sent to senior contracting officials to manipulate Bidding process And thus benefits Odebrecht. In the first batch, the former president of the National Franchise Institute (Inco) and former vice minister of transportation, Gabriel García Morales, who was to receive $4.5 million for the Ruta del Sol II contract to be handed over to the interim federation, whose largest shareholder was Odebrecht.

Subsequently, former Senator Otto Nicholas Bola, who was reviewed by the Attorney General’s office for “transferring” $6.5 million to Congress for approval, was later tied to the addition of Ocaña-Gamarra’s employment contract. For this, he used his influence in the Senate so that the required bidding process would not go through.

Both Garcia Morales and Paula Signing a preliminary agreement with the Public Prosecution In it they accepted their participation in these acts of corruption and promised to cooperate with the authorities in criminal and other disciplinary proceedings. The former deputy minister was sentenced to five years in prison and the former senator to five years and four months.

Through their statements, they have been linked to other heroes, including the powerful Senator from the U Party, Bernardo Miguel Elías Vidal, better known as Elonio, who was arrested in August 2017. Despite the fact that at one point he pleaded not guilty, in An unprecedented action before the Supreme Court, he admitted full responsibility for these events.

In 2018, he was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison. The former senator from the “La U” party expressed his intention to continue cooperating with the judicial authorities to clarify this fact of corruption.

In August 2021, when he had already turned on the fan and linked him to other people connected to kickbacks sent by Odebrecht to benefit from the country’s highway contracts, including former president Juan Manuel Santos, Elías received his second sentence: eight years and four months in prison.

On this occasion, he was found guilty of the crimes of aggravated conspiracy and money laundering, which he also admitted. On that occasion, he was fined 13,600 million pesos.