Gustavo Petro’s Son Accused of Receiving Drug Money for Campaign

Congressman Nicolás Petro, son of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, was accused by his ex-wife, Day Vásquez, of having received money from drug trafficker Samuel Santander Lopesierra, alias “El hombre Marlboro,” for his father’s presidential campaign that nevertheless never reached that destination.
Vasquez said in an interview with Semana magazine that “El hombre Marlboro” gave Petro’s son, deputy in the Assembly of the Caribbean department of Atlántico (north), “more than 600 million pesos (about 124,700 dollars today) for the father’s campaign.”
“That never legally came to the campaign because he kept that money, and so on,” added the woman, who mentioned that Nicolás Petro also received 200 million pesos (about 41,500 dollars) from businessman Alfonso “Turco” Hilsaca that they also did not go to give to the campaign.
The accusations are known hours after President Petro published a statement in which he asks the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate his brother Juan Fernando and Nicolás, who is his eldest son, without giving further details.
Petro referred to alleged meetings in prisons where, according to some versions, people around him would be posing as members of the government to contact criminals and offer them their inclusion in the “total peace” program in exchange for money, a suspicion that falls on his brother but to which his son has not been linked.
The president’s son said in a statement that, contrary to what his ex-wife claims, he has not had dealings with “The Marlboro Man” or with the “Turk” Hilasca, people he said he did not know.
Nicolás Petro added that he has not “received any type of support either directly or indirectly” from these people, so he requested “an investigation to clarify and protect my honor and good name.”

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Original source in Spanish