Espionage and Drug Lord Payoff Accusations Mar Colombia’s Presidential Race

Dual scandals have led to Colombia’s main presidential candidates’ advisors’ resignation and a fight between the country’s former president Álvaro Uribe and its current president Juan Manuel Santos.

Two weeks before Colombia’s presidential elections are set to take place, allegations of espionage and laundered drug money for campaign funds have emerged in a campaign that had, up until now, been characterized as being one of the most boring election cycles in decades.

The primary advisor to Santos’ campaign, J.J. Rendon, has been accused by Uribe of receiving 12 million dollars in 2011 from Colombia’s biggest drug lords. He is accused of taking the money to act as a middleman within the government, and to help avoid extradition to the United States.

This accusation comes directly from a US federal prison from Javier Antonio Calle Serna — also known as Comba — one of the drug lords who participated in the payment. Rendon denies receiving any funds, but does admit that he has participated in meetings with the drug traffickers’ lawyers. He resigned on May 6.

Rendon — who is originally from Caracas — is a controversial political strategist, who is wanted by Venezuelan authorities on rape charges. He has participated in numerous conservative–leaning Latin American candidates’ campaigns.

Now former president Uribe — who had received support from Rendon — accuses the strategist of having paid off $2 million worth of Santos’ presidential campaign debts in 2010 with the money that he allegedly received from drug traffickers.

Santos has rejected the accusations and invited Uribe to bring him before the general attorney, something that the former president has yet to do — though Uribe has on multiple occasions been called up by the Office of the General Attorney to expound upon his accusations.

At the same time, people involved with the 2010 Santos campaign have denounced Uribe, who is now hoping to return to public service as a senator.

During the time these events allegedly took place Santos and Uribe belonged to the same party, and Santos was the candidate chosen by Uribe to take the presidential seat — which is exactly what eventually happened.

The Politicians and The Hacker
In 2010, Oscar Ivan Zuluaga — current candidate for Uribe’s new party, the Democratic Center — was the president of the Social Party of National Unity. Zuluaga had to come to terms with the resignation of his campaign strategist, Luís Alfonso Hoyos, after it was discovered that a hacker named Andrés Fernando Sepulveda, who was detained by the attorney general and is now facing espionage charges, worked on Santos‘ campaign.

Sepulveda had allegedly been spying on the negotiators involved in the peace process that is moving forward in Havana between the Santos government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas. He, along with Hoyos, allegedly intended to profit by selling this confidential information to national publications.

Colombia and FARC negotiators begin 25th round of peace talks. Read more here.

Zuluaga stated on May 9 that he had never met the hacker, and that he had never been in the office where the interceptions took place. But this weekend he just happened to remember that he does in fact know the hacker, and that he has visited the office.

The level of confrontation has reached the point in which Eduardo Arias, a journalist with Semana magazine tweeted: “This presidential campaign looks increasingly less a like a presidential campaign and more like a settling of scores amongst rival gangs.”

Esta campaña presidencial se parece cada vez menos a una campaña presidencial y cada vez más a un ajuste de cuentas entre pandillas.

— Eduardo Arias (@Ariasvilla)May 8, 2014

To complete the scenario, the magazine Semana published some 2006 images on Tuesday which show a smiling and happy bunch, together: Santos, Uribe, J.J. Rendon, Zuluaga, and to the surprise of everyone, the hacker.