Colombia’s Supreme Court has opened a criminal investigation against former President Alvaro Uribe for receiving a campaign contribution from an alleged drug trafficker in 2018.
Uribe announced the criminal investigation on social media platform X.
The investigation seeks to verify claims made by news website La Nueva Prensa about the ties between the former president and alleged Sinaloa Cartel pilot Samuel David Niño, who allegedly went missing after a plane crash in Guatemala in December 2019.
Former pilot of Colombia’s president missing after Sinaloa Cartel plane crash: report
Niño was the half brother of Hernan Gomez, a politician from the central Meta province and a member of Uribe’s far-right Democratic Center Party.
According to the National Electoral Council, Niño made a COP20 million ($4,844) contribution in kind to Uribe’s 2018 senate campaign.
The contribution consisted of flying the former president to a campaign event in Meta, Uribe said on X.
The former president denied that NIño was one of his “trusted pilots” as claimed by La Nueva Prensa.
Samuel David Niño was never our trusted pilot, as has been said. I knew him, but I had no friendship with him. I knew him because he was the brother of Hernán Gómez Niño, who was our candidate for governor of Meta in 2015.
Former President Alvaro Uribe
Uribe additionally denied that his former pilot died while trafficking drugs from Guatemala to Mexico.
“His family has rejected this hypothesis and stated that he disappeared on an ecotourism excursion in the Orinoco” region, said the former president.
Uribe and his family have been tied to international drug trafficking since the late 1970’s when the former president granted many dozens of licenses to Medellin Cartel aircraft and landing strips.
Despite evidence, Uribe has always denied having ties to Colombian and Mexican organized crime groups involved in the international drug trade.
