This is a family tragedy story in the style of Shakespeare, or the more contemporary succession if you will. Or a Latin American soap opera about love, betrayal, money and power. But perhaps it is above all a photograph of a society with very little social mobility, where easy money and corruption are two of the few forms of transportation.
The protagonist of the story is a couple who are no longer like that but, according to the prosecutor of the scandal that shocked Colombia, behaved as “middle-class careerists” when they were: they introduced despite an income luxurious living and life stories that are more typical of the middle class. And they did it, as revealed by the prosecutor, and they both accepted, thanks to lies and corruption, a scandal that hit President Gustavo Petro directly, despite distancing himself from the protagonists and respecting, in fact and in words, the independence of the judiciary .
The couple consisted of his eldest son Nicolás Petro Burgos and Daysuris Vásquez. The two grew up on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a region known for its beaches and great economic inequality. Petro did it with his mother and grandparents in a wealthy family in the Caribbean department of Córdoba. Vásquez, in the town of Barranquilla, in a lower-middle class family. While the president’s eldest son was raised by a distant father who was first imprisoned for his participation in the M-19 guerrilla and then went into hiding, Daysuris grew up with his mother, Liceth, and sister, Gleidys, in the populous Barranquilla neighborhood of Santo Domingo. by Guzman.
Nearly a teenager and a law student, Vásquez had his first serious relationship, one that already showcased his connections to politics and the ruling classes. She was the wife of Pedro Name Delgado, a man three decades her senior who worked in Elsa Noguera’s mayor’s office and is the nephew of one of the city’s most important political leaders: José Name Terán. Vásquez managed to work as a contractor for the district, whose name was known, but life, with its ups and downs, led to the divorce. Then Vásquez met another politician relative: Nicolás Petro, whose son had already been a congressman and mayor of Bogotá.
They became a couple in 2016 and shortly thereafter, according to Daysuris’ mother, Nicolás moved to live with the family in the populous neighborhood of Santo Domingo de Guzmán in southwest Barranquilla. In 2019 they got married in a civil ceremony. Nicolás began his campaign for the governorship with his father’s support, facing the department’s entire political class, which was led by the powerful Char family and whose candidate was the former mayor Noguera. He achieved a distant but honorable second place, which secured him a seat and status and income as a department representative. The couple had come to power directly and not through their partners or relatives.
They married in April 2022, in the midst of the presidential campaign that Nicolás was leading in the Caribbean, in the presence of the then candidate and Nicolás’ entire family. Less than four months later, on August 7, 2022, Daysuris attended Petro’s inauguration as president. But he split from Nicolás just a few months later, when the president’s firstborn was already dating Vásquez’s best friend. The injured ex-wife told the president privately and later, in an interview in Semana magazine, revealed the dates of the scandal showing this search for easy money: Nicolás said that on March 2 he lost hundreds of millions of pesos (ten million pesos ) They argued that they would pay for the election costs and that they were destined to maintain this lifestyle of luxury and privilege.
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What has since become known has shown that these revelations were true, if only partially. Prosecutors arrested her on Saturday July 29 and released her evidence the following week to convince a judge that it was necessary to restrict her freedom. Nicolás, who initially denied everything, decided to cooperate with the prosecutor: after a change of defense attorney, he announced that he wanted to be present as a father to the son he is expecting. Therefore, he accepted what Daysuris had already revealed and presented evidence proving that some of the money had actually gone into the campaign, which would constitute an irregularity and possibly a crime.
That revelation on Thursday, August 3, has shaped Colombia ever since, and the focus has shifted to the president, his campaign manager and close allies, and the donors revealed by Daysuris. He clarified that his father was unaware of the two most scandalous cases, a former drug dealer and the son of a contractor who is on trial over possible alliances with the paramilitaries. Nuance aside, it was clear that the temptation to abuse power and make a quick buck was not born on the campaign trail or in a president with a father and father-in-law.
In the same hearing, prosecutors revealed irregularities first emerged in mid-2021, when the couple allegedly benefited from elder care contracts signed by the Atlántico Governorate, of which Elsa Noguera is the head, and the Social Consciousness Foundation. He even revealed a December 2021 recording in which Daysuris assured that he would meet with the governor to “organize” the project’s renewal in 2022.
There is no known evidence that this meeting took place, but there is evidence of constant communication between Vásquez and the foundation’s director, former Barranquilla councilor Gustavo de la Ossa. Prosecutors have uncovered multiple communications between them allegedly aimed at settling the contracts. In a message from August 2021, she explains how she should distribute part of the money: 120 million pesos for her (about 26,000 euros) and 40 million pesos (about 8,700 euros) for him and another partner. According to prosecutors, surprisingly (or less) the money bearer between them was Pedro Name. Former councilor De la Ossa has commented that he barely knew Nicolás Petro. And everything points to the network being on Vásquez’s end.
Then came the campaign, and there Nicolás Petro got involved directly, as he himself accepted. Getting rich was a couple’s project. For this reason, the public prosecutor’s office has accused the two of the crime of money laundering and justified this at the hearing with evidence of joint maneuvers with which the rapid increase in their wealth is to be covered up or disguised as legality. For example, Daysuris put a Mercedes-Benz vehicle in the name of his uncle César Emilio Vásquez after expelling his sister Gleidys because she was a police officer and part of the presidential escort. “You’re going to screw them up,” Nicolás Daysuris warned to protect his then-sister-in-law and prevent the facade from collapsing.
The scandal is still open. Vásquez and Petro were released after agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors. Their goal is to use evidence to uncover the corruption schemes they have spun both within the circles of contractors and politicians in the Barranquilla district, which has been dominated by the powerful Char family for the past 15 years, and around and in Barranquilla’s presidential campaign, Petro , a constant critic of this clan and its surroundings. Two opposing sides in ideology and politics, plagued in the end by corruption and a couple’s desire for wealth that no longer exists.
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