The Prosecutor’s Office began to track the movements of the controversial former governor of Antioquia Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, who calls himself more a businessman than a politician, to determine how he managed to obtain the 74,000 million pesos worth four megalots that have an origin linked to paramilitarism and in those listed as owner.
The properties are located between El Retiro and Rionegro (Eastern Antioquia) and were included under the name of Torrealta. The Prosecutor’s Office imposed a precautionary measure on them for being directly linked to the extinct Vicente Castaño clan. Incidentally, he made them available to the Victims of the Conflict Reparation Fund.
The Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa, revealed to EL COLOMBIANO that the properties have a “criminal traceability” that leads to Luis Pérez and that, in addition, had its genesis in a dispute between drug traffickers that ended up being settled by Castaño, a bloodthirsty former paramilitary commander.
How did these properties end up with folios in the name of Pérez and how was the former governor related to Castaño?
That is what the Barbosa Prosecutor’s Office wants to elucidate and for which it is preparing to open a criminal file.
“It cannot be possible that there are officials or former officials who have $74 billion in Colombia,” Barbosa told this newspaper. And he added: “Or that they can participate in this type of property when we have the rights of the victims and the phenomenon of paramilitarism in the history of Colombia involved. There is an issue that seems tremendously important to me, because it cannot be the case of public officials who get rich in the exercise of their positions.
EL COLOMBIANO also established that at the origin of the case was the declaration of a candidate for Justice and Peace identified as Rodrigo Alberto Zapata Sierra, alias Ricardo, who stated that these properties were related to the oldest member of the so-called Casa Castaño .
The court file also shows that Castaño took charge of the collection of a debt between the aforementioned drug traffickers Gustavo Tapias Ospina, alias Techo, and Édgar Marroquín, known as Marroco, from which the possession of the lands that had already been legally ordered its extinction.
“The former governor of Antioquia, Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, appears as the owner of these properties. We took precautionary measures and there it appeared. There is a criminal traceability of these assets and, therefore, they will go to the Reparation Fund so that this decision becomes the maximum precautionary measure in Colombia”, emphasized Barbosa.
The Attorney General, who was in Medellin this Monday to specify matters regarding the accusations by Hidroituango and attend to matters of his entity, specified that this “criminal traceability” is what will lead to the opening of new files against the controversial Luis Pérez, not only to explain the origin of the $74,000 million at which the Rionegro and El Retiro properties are valued, but also the relationship he would have had with Vicente Castaño and his paramilitary gang; if there was, since the former official has always defended what he qualifies as his legal action.
Torrealta’s past
The first time that the Torrealta entanglement jumped to the public scene was in 2015 by a publication by journalist Daniel Coronell and then by El Espectador, prior to the elections in which Pérez was elected as Governor of Antioquia. According to what they said, the politician and his partners bought the property for $900 million and, at the time the revelation was made, the 550-hectare extension would have been offered for sale for $70,000 million.
According to the articles, originally the owners of the land were inhabitants with roots in the region. In addition, there were other transfers and in 1974 it was bought by the wife of bullfighter Óscar ‘Oki’ Botero, who was assassinated in 1989 on a Medellín street by order of Pablo Escobar.
The land had already been bought by the banker Félix Correa, the protagonist of the financial crisis of the 1980s in the country. Later it was at the hands of drug traffickers from the Medellin cartel, including alias ‘Juan N’.
But, despite this judicially confirmed history, he did not go into forfeiture, but rather went to Sociedad Cano Villa Ltda, owned by Elkin Cano, a noted lieutenant of Pablo Escobar, who was also killed by the capo’s instructions.
Later, the property passed to a company whose owners also ended up murdered. And it is an heiress of the latter who sells to Luis Pérez and seven or eight other partners.
When asked about the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office, Pérez clarified that he only owns a third of Torrealta and assured that he has a way to prove the legal origin of his participation, as well as that of all his assets.
“The first thing is that I am a businessman before being a public official. The second thing is that when that land was bought I was not an official; In addition, when that land was purchased, more or less 17 years ago, a study of the titles of the previous owners was carried out and the Castaño paramilitaries and those people do not appear in any of them, ”he emphasized.
But, according to Barbosa’s statements, the Prosecutor’s Office has a very opposite thesis to that of the controversial former governor.
Luis Pérez answers: “Before being a public official, I am an entrepreneur.”
How do you explain that your land appears in a fight between drug traffickers and ‘paramilitaries’?
“I didn’t know the Castaños or “Techo” or “Marroco”. They may be referring to some informal conflict. The Prosecutor’s Office, due to some noise they are making, initiates an investigation; it is simply a precautionary measure, but we have everything absolutely clear and we have never bought from any bandit”.
Why does a politician like you mess with a field of such an opaque past?
“An analysis was made of all the titles and outside of that, the Prosecutor’s Office and the National Narcotics Council were asked to certify if there was any problem with that, and they told us no. There is also a letter from the representative of the company (from which they bought) that under oath says that, while they had that land, there was no claim. We did everything necessary to have good faith and due diligence.”
Wasn’t that excess of caution just because of suspicions that there was something wrong around?
“Before being a public official, I am an entrepreneur. Those of us who are land dealers always do that, the tradition of the last 20 years is not enough for us, but we go to the Prosecutor’s Office to see if the property has any blemish”.
Now comes an investigation into his assets, according to the Prosecutor’s Office…
“I don’t think so, because my assets, including that land, are legal. I bought that land with the money from a house that I had in El Poblado and that was valued at $1,650 million. I wish they would give it back to me then.”
What to say in the face of doubts about your fortune?
“Which is a slander, because I am a businessman and I have never been investigated for having abnormal properties, or ill-gotten funds, or for being involved in illicit business.”