Conspiracy to commit a crime

By: Francisco Santos - 12/02/2025

Let's stop the nonsense. Things must be called by their name. This Government, especially the Casa de Nariño and its highest spheres, is a conspiracy to commit crimes. And this is not an assertion made lightly. The evidence is serious, very serious, and that came to the fore at the cabinet meeting last Tuesday.

The first issue in this concert is that President Gustavo Petro is being investigated for illegal resources in his campaign, for violating limits in it, and the worst thing is that the person he appointed as his second in command had publicly threatened him just two years ago. “We are all sinking, you son of a b…,” Benedetti threatened the current foreign minister Laura Sarabia in some chats leaked to the press.

This threat, addressed to the president, and this blackmail over who knows what illegal things, in which there is even talk of up to 20 billion pesos, not only show part of this conspiracy to commit crimes, but, even worse, it is rewarded a few years later with the appointment of Benedetti to the Casa de Nariño.

Obviously, this triggered some resignations and criticisms that often seem more the result of hypocrisy and a salute to the flag, since they were not accompanied by the political actions that such an affront deserved. And the petrosantism today represented by the Minister of the Interior, Juan Fernando Cristo? Silent, since his former ally – Benedetti – is now in the Palace with one objective: to steal the 2026 elections. They want to be in on that game, since their only reason for existing is power at any cost.

Was the blackmail so great that this is the reason why the president has now appointed him to such an important position? Nothing should be ruled out, but there are more questions than answers. If we also add other cases of corruption in President Petro's inner circle, this finally shows how the circle of collusion to commit crimes is closing.

The second scandal is that of Nicolás Petro, the president's eldest son, accused of illicit enrichment and money laundering with campaign funds, which, added to the 20 billion that Benedetti mentions in his chats, show a pattern of illegal conduct around Gustavo Petro. Coincidence? I don't think so, because there are two other elements that confirm this pattern.

The third is the episode of Laura Sarabia's employee, Marelbys Meza, who traveled by private plane from Bogotá to Caracas, oh surprise, after the incident of the disappearance of a briefcase with cash, the sum of which ranges from 40 million to 3,000. Sarabia, then chief of staff, is being investigated for this case, since the Palace gave the order to tap the employee's phone and then detain her to subject her to an illegal polygraph. All for a briefcase with pennies? Don't think we're so stupid. In this case there is a colonel who committed suicide, nobody believes the story of suicide, and the investigations have not gone as far as they should.

The fourth is already the cover: the case of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD). There is already a high-ranking presidential official convicted, Sandra Ortiz, who when she speaks and tells the truth, if they don't kill her first, because there is already a dead witness, as Benedetti said in his chat, "we all sink." In this scandal of buying congressmen and senators, and of diversion of resources up to 1.2 billion pesos that are being investigated, the epicenter is the Casa de Nariño and there are ministers under investigation and even Laura Sarabia, again, who was denounced by Ortiz.

What was seen at that cabinet meeting, besides being a circus, is just the tip of the iceberg in the most corrupt government in the history of Colombia. If we had a moderately effective justice system, and that should be one of the great reforms of future governments, many ministers and many officials of this government would be in jail.

Furthermore, if the mechanism of impeachment of a president worked, Petro would no longer be in power. Today his congressmen and 'former' friends, and supposed defenders of human rights are the ones who are prosecuting him in the first instance. Nothing is going to happen. What Benedetti did in the Supreme Court for a previous case is shameful, in time and in action. And nothing can be expected from this prosecutor, since she is in the president's pocket.

The only thing that is certain is that in a reasonably functional country with judicial institutions that halfway did their job in the matter of corruption, everyone from Gustavo Petro down would be behind bars. Finding the illegal money that congressmen and officials receive is not difficult, but here you see houses, cars, watches and all kinds of luxury items that they could never buy with their salaries or their businesses.

There is already talk of a tender for one of the largest companies in Colombia that will be worth around 700 million dollars, when the service contracted does not cost even 300. This year that remains, we have to be very vigilant with each contract, because there are two elements that can haunt corruption in what remains of the Government. The first, stealing to buy votes and the second, stealing to live better. It will surely be a mixture of the two. Long live change!

«The opinions published herein are the sole responsibility of its author».