Jail ordered for two former Petro ministers for involvement in corruption scandal

Bogotá,.- Former Colombian ministers Ricardo Bonilla (Finance) and Luis Fernando Velasco (Interior) were sent this Thursday to preventive detention by a judge of the Superior Court of Bogotá, for their participation in the corruption scandal of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management (UNGRD). Bonilla and Velasco thus become the two highest-ranking former officials of President Gustavo Petro who are going to jail for this scandal, after being accused of leading a "criminal organization" that, between 2023 and 2024, allegedly allocated more than 612,000 million pesos (about 163 million dollars) to pay congressmen in exchange for legislative support for the Government.

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The court order against the two former ministers is a precautionary measure while their criminal proceedings are defined for the crimes of conspiracy to commit a crime, bribery for giving or offering, and undue interest in the conclusion of contracts that the Prosecutor's Office charged them with at the beginning of the month. In her decision, magistrate Aura Alexandra Rosero pointed out that the fact that the former ministers no longer hold public office does not eliminate the "risks of the process". Rosero explained that the investigated behaviors were not limited to the exercise of his functions, but were supported by already consolidated political and administrative networks, which operated through third parties. The Court also held that the custodial measure is "suitable, necessary and proportionate" and that the danger does not depend on the risk of flight of the accused, but on the need to prevent them from "rearticulating or continuing previous criminal practices".

The Biggest Corruption Case of the Petro Government

Bonilla was Petro's second Minister of Finance, between May 2023 and December 2024, when he resigned after being linked to the irregularities of the UNGRD. Velasco, for his part, has a long political career in which he was even president of the Senate, briefly directed the UNGRD in April 2023, and held the Interior portfolio between May 2023 and June 2024. According to the investigation, former minister Bonilla is linked to the alleged awarding of contracts for at least 92,000 million pesos (about 23 million dollars) for the benefit of six congressmen, in exchange for their support in the Legislature for the expansion of the government's debt ceiling. The Prosecutor's Office charged the former officials at the beginning of this month, but they did not accept the charges and both rejected the accusations against them. The scandal at the UNGRD, in charge of preventing and responding to emergencies in the country, erupted in February of last year due to press reports and has been considered the biggest corruption case of the Petro government. Since then, the investigation has escalated to involve high-ranking officials and former Senate presidents Iván Name and House of Representatives president Andrés Calle, who were arrested on May 7th. Both congressmen are under investigation for the crimes of improper bribery and embezzlement for the benefit of third parties, in a decision adopted by the Instruction Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice. In May of last year, the former deputy director of the UNGRD, Sneyder Pinilla —sentenced in this case to more than five years in prison— revealed that huge resources from the entity were used in 2023 to pay millionaire bribes to Name and Calle.