After six uniformed officers and a civilian were arrested on August 31 for allegedly tampering with reports to intercept the communications of Laura Sarabia’s former nanny, Marelbys Meza, another significant court decision was announced this Monday.
Bogotá’s third municipal guarantee control judge, who has been holding confidential hearings for more than a week at the request of prosecutors, ordered prison sentences for three uniformed officers.
These are Jhon Fredi Morales Cárdenas, Alfonso Quinchanegua Quinchanegua and Carlos Andrés Loaiza Correa. Prosecutors accused them of allegedly lying and altering reports, so prosecutors ordered the interception of communications from Marelbys Meza and Fabiola Perea, former employees of current Social Prosperity Director Laura Sarabia.
Patrolman Dana Alejandra Canizales is involved in the process. Initially, the judge imposed the same security measure against him, but his defense attorney appealed for reconsideration, the judge ruled in his favor, so the non-custodial measure was ordered.
The prosecution argued that the prison security measure for the four of them was urgent and necessary because “there are serious reasons that suggest that the defendant could conceal or falsify evidence, induce evidence or behave unlawfully.” a disloyal or reserved manner.
The four uniformed officers were charged on September 1 with ideological falsehood, procedural fraud and unlawful communications violation, although none claimed responsibility.
The prosecution’s thesis is that Quinchanegua and Canizales altered the investigation that began on January 30 with the report on the robbery of the house of the then chief of staff of the presidency, Laura Sarabia, while Morales and Loaiza knew about the irregularities and decided to close them to hide. .
The manipulation of the fake file resulted in the prosecutor prosecuting the robbery case ordering the telephone lines of Marelbys Meza, Fabiola Perea and others to be tapped. Marelbys and Fabiola were incorrectly described as “The Cook” and “The Godmother”, alleged members of the Golf clan.
Last week, Sijín deputy mayor Fredy Alexánder Gómez and civilian informant Rafael Ricardo Santos were also sent to prison after they allegedly altered reports to also intercept people close to Marelbys Meza.
According to prosecutors, they provided authorities with false pseudonyms of false ringleaders twice, in February and June of this year.
According to the evidence available so far, in February of this year, Mayor Alfonso Quinchanegua of Sijín and Dana Canizales, patrol officer of the Bogotá Police, submitted a report to the Theft Prosecutor’s Office 101 in which they asked to intercept the communications of several people, including Marelbys Meza and Fabiola Perea.
This request came after the same prosecutor explained to 101 that there were insufficient reasons to carry out the telephone number interference. To correct this fact, Quinchanegua and Canizales supported their report with a statement from an informal source, who was Rafael Ricardo Santos.
Santos is a mechanic who works in the center of Bogotá and in his statement in February, received at the request of Fredy Alexánder Gómez from Sijín, he said that a certain pseudonym “Pini”, a suspected criminal, came to his workshop offered to sell him a few dollars that he had taken from Sarabia’s house.
However, it later turned out that “Pini” did not really exist, but was Yhonson Pineda. The February report also called for the interception of a pseudonym “Pacho,” who was actually Luz Robles Arrieta. Both people were intercepted in an operation considered irregular, for which four other police officers, including Canizales and Quinchanegua, are charged.
In June, four months after that initial report, another prosecutor from the anti-corruption division called on Santos and Gómez to testify under oath. According to prosecutor Ángela Santana, there were inconsistencies in these testimonies that Gómez tried to clarify, but that ultimately led to the diversion of that office’s investigation into Quinchanegua and Canizales.
The prosecution accused Fredy Gómez and Rafael Santos of procedural fraud, but neither of them accepted this. Next he requested a security measure in a prison.
The investigation into the five uniformed officers and the civilian continues, with a decision yet to be made as to whether prosecutors will formally charge them or rule out the investigation in their favor.
