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Nicolas Petro, son of the Colombian president, was detained by the police on Saturday on cash laundering and illicit enrichment expenses. The arrest comes as a part of a high-profile probe, stemming from accusations made by his ex-wife earlier this 12 months.
Colombian police arrested the son of President Gustavo Petro on Saturday as a part of a high-profile cash laundering probe into funds he allegedly collected from convicted drug traffickers throughout final 12 months’s presidential marketing campaign.
President Gustavo Petro, a former insurgent who rose by Colombia’s political ranks as an anti-corruption crusader, mentioned he wouldn’t intervene with the investigation.
“As a person and father, it pains me to see a lot self-destruction and certainly one of my sons going to jail,” Petro mentioned in an early morning message on X, the social media platform previously often known as Twitter.
“As president of the republic, I’ve assured the chief prosecutor’s workplace that it’s going to have all the ensures so it may possibly proceed in keeping with the legislation.”
The arrest of Nicolas Petro comes as a serious blow to the federal government, which has been buffeted by conservative assaults from day one. On the identical time, it has struggled to keep up bipartisan help for Colombia within the US, a longtime ally within the conflict on medication and battle towards unlawful armed teams.
The investigation stems from surprising declarations made by Nicolas Petro’s ex-wife, Daysuris del Carmen Vasquez, to an area media outlet earlier this 12 months.
Within the prolonged interview, Vasquez detailed how she was current at conferences when her husband organized a donation of greater than 600 million pesos (round $150,000) from a politician as soon as convicted in Washington of drug trafficking and who was looking for the Petro marketing campaign’s help to renew his political profession.
She mentioned President Petro was unaware of her son’s dealings and the cash he collected in his marketing campaign’s identify was stored inside a protected contained in the couple’s house within the coastal metropolis of Barranquilla.
Nicolas Petro has denied his ex-wife’s claims as unfounded.
In an announcement, the chief prosecutor’s workplace mentioned each Petro and Vasquez have been taken into custody on orders of a court docket in Bogota round 6 a.m. native time. The doc added that after introduced earlier than a choose, prosecutors would search their provisional detention because it investigates the 2 for cash laundering.
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