The investigations do not stop in the largest corruption case ever known during the Government of Gustavo Petro, after finding irregularities and payment of bribes in the purchase of Ungrd tank trucks to supply La Guajira that ended up implicating senior officials, contractors and renowned politicians from the high Government and Congress.
Although the key investigators are Olmedo López and Sneyder Pinilla, former leaders of the National Risk Management Unit, they are already beginning to seek contact with people who may have more detailed information about How 7.2 billion pesos ended up in the hands of the then deputy director of the unit and who unleashed the scandal.
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One of the key actors in this plot is Luis Eduardo López Rosero, a contractor from Nariño and old supplier to the Ungrd. In an interview granted to Time, López Rosero confessed that he knew Roger Pastas Fuertes, owner of Impoamericana Roger SAS, the company responsible for providing the tank trucks for a total of 46.8 billion pesos., generating cost overruns of 20,000 million. In fact, during his intervention, the contractor also revealed that he and his daughter, Karen López Brand, provided the money for the acquisition of the vehicles.
However, the man from Pasto would already be planning his strategy to negotiate with the Prosecutor’s Office. In recent days it had even been revealed that López Rosero was planning an opportunity, although in the end, he did not appear at the summons that had been scheduled for him.
The authorities have evidence that suggests that López Rosero acted as a liaison to execute the plan, which included a bribe of 7.2 billion pesos delivered in cash in February 2024.
As revealed by the investigation of Time, López’s participation in a corruption network would have started in the middle of the ‘bicycle club’, a combo of sports friends made up of high-level politicians and businessmen in Pasto., Nariño. It would be in the middle of those sporting events that the irregular agreements that today have the National Government in check were sealed.
In fact, an informant told the national media that Pedro Andrés Rodríguez Melo, general advisor to Olmedo López and former head of the legal office of Camilo Romero (then governor of Nariño for Alianza Verde), He was in charge of contacting López Rosero to propose the tank truck business, through the supplier that provided the bicycles to the powerful sports group..
But Rodríguez Melo already appears in Sneyder Pinilla’s collaboration matrix. His name was even made public in the middle of a report from The W Radio who also pointed out his involvement in the scandal last week.
“The version that is verified is that Sneyder Pinilla sent a message to López Rosero with a first-level emissary: Pedro Andrés Rodríguez Melo. The latter appears as general advisor to Olmedo López,” the source commented to the newspaper. Time.
Pedro Rodríguez was already in the sights of the authorities before the tanker scandal broke out, since his own boss, the former director of the Ungrd Olmedo López, reported him to the Prosecutor’s Office for concealment of information and corruption.
Everything seems to indicate that the then advisor to the General Directorate appointed by Olmedo with the objective of strengthening management and institutional transparency, would be the key link that It ended up affecting members of the Green Alliance, including the former advisor for the presidential regions Sandra Ortiz; the president of the Senate, Iván Name, and Carlos Ramón Gonzálezhead of the National Intelligence Directorate.
For their part, President Gustavo Petro and his Minister of the Interior, Luis Fernando Velasco, have asked the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate senior and former officials of the Ungrd, including those from previous administrations. In parallel, Businessman López Rosero is evaluating what information to provide to the Prosecutor’s Office to avoid a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, which could also implicate his daughter and his wife..
López Rosero explained that his daughter appears to be receiving part of the money because his company made a loan for the tank truck project. His wife, Sandra Liliana Brand Pantoja, heads Brand SAS, another firm that listed the tank cars along with Impoamericana Roger SAS and Luked SAS. “It was a random selection,” as Olmedo López initially explained.
Some questions still surround the case, especially about the origin of the four billion pesos allegedly distributed between the president of the Senate, Iván Name, and the president of the Chamber, Andrés Callein October 2023. Sneyder Pinilla indicated that, as the disbursement of the tank trucks was delayed, he went to another contractor to obtain the resources that would have reached the Congress of the Republic, with the purpose of promoting the Government’s reforms.
