President Abelardo De La Espriella shared through his social networks the results of an operation by the Anti-Narcotics Police and the Prosecutor’s Office in collaboration with the DEA, against members of a powerful network linked to the ‘Gulf Clan’ that laundered more than 2.3 trillion pesos from drug trafficking.
The illegal structure was subjected to asset forfeiture measures on more than 30 properties valued at over 10 million dollars. In the raid video, luxurious houses can be seen where at least five members of the organization were captured. Also, a Mercedes Benz truck and several high-displacement motorcycles.
The special agent
The Prosecutor’s Office stated that at least since 2018, members of the organization used nine companies and four businesses dedicated to civil engineering works, consulting, currency exchange intermediation, and financial services to launder money from drug trafficking.
Additionally, investigators identified million-dollar transfers in a digital currency known as USDT with companies linked to drug trafficking groups that have been sanctioned by the United States Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Part of that money ended up invested in high-end properties and vehicles – like the Mercedes Benz in the video shared by the President – to hide the origin of the funds.
In the August 2024 hearing held at the 14th Criminal Court with Guarantee Control Function in Medellín, to which EL TIEMPO had access, the case prosecutor stated that the investigation began with a letter from DEA special agent Thomas Mice, in which he spoke about the deposit of money to Colombian companies for more than 100 thousand dollars from drug trafficking.
“The DEA provides information of interest indicating that a sum of 107 thousand dollars, allegedly from drug trafficking, was received. Therefore, it requests information about the companies to which this money was deposited and thus determines that it was deposited to the company Armotodo SAS”, the prosecutor said during the proceeding.
EL TIEMPO investigated and established that as manager of the company, dedicated to building finishing and financial services, appears Hugo Daniel Giraldo Santamaría, who according to the Prosecutor’s Office would be the alleged leader of the organization
In fact, at the hearing the Prosecutor’s Office explained that from 2012 to 2020, the company did not exceed more than 100 million pesos, but from 2021 to 2024 it moved more than 223 million dollars.
Who were they laundering money for?
Besides Giraldo Santamaría, the prosecutor mentioned in the hearing that DEA agents, in collaboration with Colombian authorities, identified that it was an organization with participation of people not only in Colombia and the United States, but also in Costa Rica.
In fact, he mentioned a name so far unknown and not among those captured: “A letter from a DEA agent indicates that the phone subscriber (…) is being used by Mr. Nelson Molina Hernández, who is the person responsible for coordinating the shipment of cocaine to Costa Rica and subsequently, with the help of alias Hugo Giraldo and the companies under his control, they receive payments for these shipments”.
Besides Hugo Giraldo, his wife Carolina María Giraldo was also detained, in charge of handling large sums of money and the corporate conglomerate; Yanet Catalina Cano Santamaría, who coordinated the monetization of virtual assets; Johan Mateo Ruiz Orijhuela, who allegedly used digital wallets to facilitate the entry of large sums of money; and Luis Andrés Ospina Ochoa, who kept the money hidden through the investigated companies.
(Consult all articles from EL TIEMPO’s Investigative Unit here)
Also, 36 assets located in Medellín and Envigado (4 properties, 19 vehicles, 9 companies, and 4 commercial establishments) entered the asset forfeiture process, with an estimated value exceeding 10.2 million dollars.
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
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