Olmedo López will provide information to the Attorney General’s Office about a possible participation of the Minister of Finance, Ricardo Bonilla, who had not been mentioned until now in the corruption scandal of the National Unit for Risk Management (UNGRD) and will ratify what was stated about the Minister of the Interior Luis Fernando Velasco. This was made known by his lawyer José Luis Moreno in statements in the last few hours, as EL COLOMBIANO had anticipated.
López attended the prosecuting body over the last three days and also did so last week in extensive sessions in which he testified to the prosecutor in the case in great detail and with documents, chats and georeferencing evidence that would help prove the places where he was there and the people he met with. Until now, López had pointed out the names of the Minister of the Interior, Lui Fernando Velasco, who will now be an official part of his collaboration matrix, and those of the president of the Senate, Iván Name, of the Chamber, Andrés Calle, as well as Carlos Ramón González , current head of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI) and Sandra Ortiz, former advisor for the regions who left her position by order of President Gustavo Petro. The last name mentioned by the former director of the Unit had been that of the president of the Congressional Accusations Commission, Wadith Manzur. All of those mentioned have denied any type of participation in acts of corruption.
The name that until now was not known was that of the Minister of Finance, in charge of the country’s budget and the allocation of the resources that all Government entities execute. López spoke two weeks ago about the creation of a “conclave” supposedly made up of five people, among whom would be Minister Velasco, the director of the DNI, and now it is presumed that Minister Bonilla, according to his statement. According to López, decisions were made there to extract resources from UNGRD contracts that ended up in the hands of politicians. These resources were intended to promote the president’s social reforms in Congress, as well as contribute to the October 2023 elections.
The statements were forceful about Name, to whom they said they had sent 3,000 million pesos through the former counselor Ortiz, and about Calle, to whom Sneyder Pinilla and López claim to have delivered 1,000 million pesos to his apartment in Montería for around 15 days. before October 29, when the country was voting in local elections. Andrés Calle’s brother is Gabriel Calle, former candidate for the Governor of Córdoba who lost that race. His father was a candidate for the Mayor of Montelíbano, where he was elected.
On the other hand, Manzur was supporting the conservative Erasmo Zuleta who was elected and is the current governor of Córdoba. López also promised a list with 25 names about which he will declare and provide information in the collaboration matrix to achieve a principle of opportunity. The Prosecutor’s Office has already said that it will not grant him total immunity, so the former director will have to negotiate with his information a short prison sentence after the accusation of crimes that are not covered in the principle. Pinilla still needs to testify to the accusing body, since efforts have been concentrated on López. The latter said that the figure of resources in corruption would be about 380,000 million pesos.
