Guillermo Valencia Cossio is not a drug trafficker, his attorney said after the United States added the former Interior and Justice Minister’s brother to a list of Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers banned from doing business with U.S. citizens.
In a press release on Tuesday, Valencia Cossio’s lawyer stressed that paramilitary drug lords and brothers “Don Mario” and “El Aleman” have denied links to Valencia Cossio, who is accused of having done favors for Don Mario in the time he was the head of the Prosecutor General’s Office in Medellin.
“It is unacceptable that the Colombian press calls and treats doctor Guillermo Leon Valencia Cossio as a drug trafficker or a person with commitments to criminal groups, when the opposite arises from the trial now conducted by the Colombian sovereign authority,” the press release said.
According to the United States treasury department, Valencia Cossio is now “a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker pursuant to the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) for his ties to the criminal organization of Colombian narcotics trafficker Daniel Rendon Herrera (a.k.a. Don Mario).”
