Bogota, Nov 10 (EFE).- A Colombian prosecutor on Monday charged six crimes against Nicolas Petro Burgos, the eldest son of President Gustavo Petro, for his alleged involvement in a corruption case when he was a deputy for the Assembly of the Caribbean department of Atlantico (north). "The National Prosecutor's Office (…) informs you that you are being investigated for (…) improper interest in the celebration of contracts, embezzlement, influence peddling, forgery of a public document, forgery of a private document and false testimony," said prosecutor Lucy Laborde during a hearing. The body accuses the eldest son of having appropriated 111 million pesos (about $29,500) between 2021 and 2022 as part of his alleged "management" for the celebration of two contracts between the Government of Atlantico and the Social Conscience Foundation (Fucoso). "These facts, Mr. Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos, are imputed to you (…) because you did not have direct functional administration over these public resources from the contract. This is why your responsibility is structured as an intervening party in the embezzlement committed by those who did administer the public money," the prosecutor added. This case adds to the other criminal process he has faced since July 2023, when the Prosecutor's Office accused him of receiving money from Samuel Santander Lopesierra, alias Marlboro Man, convicted of drug trafficking in the United States, and from Gabriel Hilsaca Acosta, son of businessman Alfonso 'Turco' Hilsaca. The Prosecutor's Office assures that the president's son "hid and covered up" sums of up to 500 million pesos (about $132,000) delivered by politicians such as Maximo Noriega, who is pointed out as being the intermediary between possible drug traffickers and Petro. Part of that money supposedly entered his father's electoral campaign, although Petro Burgos assured in an interview with the magazine Semana that the president did not know about it.
