Nicolás Petro Burgos, firstborn of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, revealed that his father knew about the alleged irregular money flowing into the campaign which won him the 2022 elections.

This is evident from the publication that the magazine made on Saturday Week of the videos of an interrogation at the Public Prosecution Service in which Petro Burgos indicated that he was his father “I knew very well” that Euclides Torres, a businessman from Barranquilla, “was the one who financed the campaign.”.

“I said it to him several times, he knew it (…) When we traveled to the events, (now Senator) Pedro Flórez always went, so he and I talked about the financing, which Euclid financed,” he said during the diligence that took place on August 2, before he was summoned to court and broke his cooperation with the Public Prosecution Service.

This financing is apparently illegal because, according to the president’s son, it has not been reported to the National Electoral Council (CNE).

Petro Burgos assured that the former Colombian ambassador to Venezuela Armando Benedetti, who was the current president’s right-hand man during the campaign, always “emphasized” to Petro in his presence that “it was Euclid who financed the events.”

“When he participated in the campaign, (Benedetti) always told us that he provided the money, that he looked for the money and that the money was obtained through Euclid, but the person who channeled these funds was Pedro Flórez.the head of state’s son added.

Euclides Torres, according to an investigation by the digital media La Silla Vacía, is a businessman who heads a clan responsible for running public lighting concessions in 15 municipalities in the country, through “corporate camouflage.”

Petro Burgos, rightly so

Last Monday, the Public Prosecution Service presented charges of illegal enrichment and money laundering against Petro’s son, for which he will appear in court.

Petro Burgos was arrested on July 29, charged with illegal enrichment and money laundering.but reached a cooperation agreement with the Justice Department, which allowed him to respond freely to the trial, but he apparently did not keep that promise.

It all started last March when the Public Prosecutor’s Office began investigating him following complaints from his ex-wife, Daysuris Vásquez, that the president’s first-born son, who was a deputy of the Assembly of the Caribbean Department of Atlántico, illegally receiving money for the 2022 presidential campaign.

After his arrest, Petro Burgos admitted, according to the Public Prosecution Service, that he had received money from former drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra, known as “the Marlboro man”and Gabriel Hilsaca Acosta, son of controversial businessman Alfonso “Turco” Hilsaca.

Some of that money would have gone to his father’s 2022 presidential campaign, although Petro Burgos assured in an interview with Semana that the current president did not know in this case. (JO)