(La Nueva Prensa agradece la traducción realizada de forma desinteresada por Tomás Mantilla - @MantillaTomas.)

 An investigation by the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia, opened to clarify a homicide in Barranquilla attributed to the now deceased drug trafficker José Guillermo Hernández Aponte, a.k.a ‘Ñeñe’, circumstantially captured in audio his conversations with multiple parts where he claims to be the central node in a vote-buying operation in the colombian north coast for the now president, Iván Duque, by order of the former president and now senator Álvaro Uribe.

(“Chacha” (sp), (MD, meaning unidentified women) says Iván and Uribe sent to Manaure, Uribía, Rioacha and Maicao, we have to win in la guajira.

ODA: In the communication it appears that unidentified women and José Guillermo is (sic.) coordinating vote buying in the municipios of la Guajira and Valledupar, for the candidate for president Iván Duque.)

A report by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN by its acronym in Spanish) about various lawful telephone interceptions.

(It is to inform the attorney’s office, based on the results of the interception of communications, which put in evidence corruption activities perpetrated by Mr. JOSÉ GUILLERMO HERNÁNDEZ APONTE, in the past presidential election, due to the above I request the Attorney General’s office studies the possibility of referring this issue to the DA with jurisdiction, with the purpose of corroborating the criminal activities that there are referred.)

A report by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN by its acronym in Spanish) about various lawful telephone interceptions.

    ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández was assassinated last May in Uberaba, state of Minas Gerais (Brazil), under unclear circumstances that have been presented as a robbery attempt. Once news of ‘Ñeñe’s’ death came out Uribe Vélez was the first in Colombia to deplore what happened.

(The assassination of José Guillermo Hernández causes much pain, ranch-man from Cesar, assassinated in a robbery in Brazil where he was attending a cattle industry convention)

The assets of the late drug trafficker ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández, valued by the DIJIN at more than two million of millions of Colombian pesos, were seized last June and subjected to an ownership termination process.

The evidentiary materials of electoral fraud are amidst thousands of phone calls intercepted by request of the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia in the homicide case, but have never been handled as evidence for the prosecution of vote buying, even as they were examined and separated by analysts from the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol, DIJIN. This journalist possesses this evidentiary material.

 ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández was one of the main guests of Iván Duque’s inaugural address on August 7th 2018. The location of his seat was better than those of the magistrates of the high courts. The close friendship of this drug trafficker with Ivan Duque was documented by the journalist Julián Martínez in his online show Revelados -which stands for Revealed in Spanish. -  WATCH .

On the other hand, in one of the recordings of the conversations it can be heard when ‘Ñeñe’ reveals he also stole money that was intended for vote buying in the north coast for former vice president Germán Vargas Lleras in the presidential election first round, and apparently, instead used it to buy votes for Duque in the runoff election.

In fact, in a conversation with a person called “Priscilla”, the drug trafficker ‘Ñeñe’ says:

“Listen up, in the past (elections) we took advantage of the money that they stole from Vargas Lleras, transport money and from things in this other (elections) we are not going to have it, ¿do you imagine if they had taken from us those one hundred and something million pesos what would have happened in el Valle [Valledupar]?”.

In ‘Ñeñe’s’ conversations with Priscilla they let know that there were more than one thousand million pesos with respect to an under-the-table money handout and explains that he is the one in charge of getting businessman on board with vote-buying for Iván Duque. Those one thousand million pesos Priscilla, apparently, received them from someone called Mauricio.

(COMMUNICATION OF ACTIVITIES OF CORRUPTION BY MR. JOSÉ GUILLERMO HERNÁNDEZ APONTE.

ID PRODUCT: 232770882

DATE: 03/06/2018-09:58:17

MD (Unidentified women) stablishes communication with José Guillermo to whom she expresses that she is worried with the elections because there is too much work -José Guillermo, yesterday I was saying to Priscila, that we have to be at the top of our game, we have to look for money to hand it out under the table, to release it in the departamentos – MD, Priscila says he did not tell you, I got a thousand millions of millions of pesos, what I need is one of the businessman and one gives them the list, I have a company that gives them money and nobody its going to know – José Guillermo, says listen up, in the past (elections) we took advantage of the money that was stole from Vargas Lleras, transport money and from things in this (elections) we are not going to have it, ¿do you imagine if they had taken from us those one hundred and something million pesos what would have happened in el Valle, Mauricio told

Report of the DIJIN about various lawful interceptions.)

A report by the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and Interpol (DIJIN by its acronym in Spanish) about various lawful telephone interceptions.

The recordings made by the DIJIN for by the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia also laid bare that a DA, called Ricardo Bejarano Beltrán, stayed in touch with ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández, letting him know about confidential proceedings that the General Attorney’s Office was bringing against him and adverting him about when his communications were being intercepted. Bejarano Beltrán has 26 open criminal investigations in the Office of the Attorney General of Colombia for crimes such as Prevaricato por acción (a crime similar to malfeasance in office in the US), criminal threatening, personal injury, against moral integrity and bribery. All cases are frozen.

The homicide case in which circumstantially appeared the evidence about vote-buying for Iván Duque refers to the death of Óscar Rodríguez, a young man that hitmen mistook for his father, a tailor, Carlos Rodríguez Gómez, whom had just come back to Colombia after serving time for money laundering in the United States.

Rodríguez Gómez asked ‘Ñeñe’ to pay him back an old debt of $1.000 millions, but in order to avoid paying,’ Ñeñe’ decided to assassinate him with hitmen from his partner Marcos Figueroa. But the hitmen mistook him with his son.

      “I made a mistake because the kid’s father always used that car and that day he switched (…); because of that mistake they did not pay me, just paid my expenses, they gave me $3 millions in advance in Bogotá, one week before getting here [Barranquilla]”, testified the confessed killer Diego Acuña.

The lawyer of the civil part in the case of the assassinated young man, criminal lawyer Miguel Ángel del Río, in dialogue with La Nueva Prensa (The New Press), expressed his certainty about what he sees as the case being paralyzed and hindered because of the high-profile criminal interest that exist around the ‘Ñeñe’ Hernández and his corrupt relations inside politics:

 “For this lawyer the aforementioned audio recordings materialize, on one side, the legitimacy of this government that relied on a crook to win the presidential elections in la guajira. And, on the other hand, they legitimate the reasons why the assassination case of ‘Óscar Eduardo Rodriguez’, that involved the Ñeñe Hernandez and Marquitos Figueroa, has not found justice and expose the collusion between the district attorney Ricardo Bejarano and the ñeñe Hernandez in this criminal proceeding”.

(TRANSLATION OF SPANISH TO ENGLISH BY : @MantillaTomas)