
Colombia president warns of plot to remove him as former ally calls him a drug 'addict'
Colombian president Gustavo Petro says his former foreign minister is part of an 'international plot' to oust him after the onetime ally accused him of being a drug 'addict' for the second time in three weeks
May 6, 2025 at 7:02 p.m. EDT
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Associated Press
22 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Colombian court frees former president Uribe from house arrest until it rules on bribery case
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — A Colombian appeals court ruled Tuesday that former president Alvaro Uribe must be released from house arrest while he challenges his conviction for bribery and witness tampering. On Aug. 1, the conservative leader was sentenced to 12 years of house arrest for threatening and trying to flip witnesses who had spoken to investigators about his alleged role in the formation of a right wing paramilitary group in the 1990s. Uribe denies the charges and has appealed the conviction to the Superior Tribunal in Bogota. The court has until mid-October to issue a definitive ruling on the case, which has gripped Colombia and also provoked reactions from Uribe's allies in the United States. On Tuesday the Superior Tribunal said it approved an injunction filed by Uribe's defense team seeking his release from house arrest. Uribe's lawyers argued the former president's right to due process was violated by the arrest order against him, as well as his right to a presumption of innocence.

Forbes
2 hours ago
- Forbes
The Wiretap: The DEA Laundered $19 Million Of Cartel Drug Money Into Cash And Crypto
The Wiretap is your weekly digest of cybersecurity, internet privacy and surveillance news. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here . For over a decade the DEA infiltrated a cartel money laundering operation turning some money into crypto, now worth $1.5 million. getty F or over a decade, the DEA ran a money laundering operation for a Columbian narcotics trafficking cartel. In total, the agency and its sources took in $19 million in drug money, funnelling cash into bank and cryptocurrency accounts controlled by sources, agents and the cartel. At the end of it all, two heroin traffickers were charged as a direct result of the operation. That's according to both a source familiar with the investigation and a recently-unsealed seizure warrant, which shows how the DEA was deeply embedded in the cartel's attempts to evade law enforcement, both in shifting old school fiat currencies and digital alternatives. The DOJ declined to comment. 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You're assisting them in laundering the proceeds, but at the same time, you're also aware of it. You can see it. If you don't do it, somebody else is going to do it.' The DEA's investigation began in 2009 when it had sources infiltrate various networks of money launderers across the U.S., Colombia and Mexico, all of them affiliated with a Cali, Colombia, drug trafficking organization referred to by the DEA as the Pecoso. Likened by the DOJ to the Sinaloa cartel, it had mostly focused on large-scale cocaine shipments. To conceal the source of their income, it recruited individuals who would exchange or deposit cash across different accounts. The undercover agents and their sources managed to get themselves recruited into those roles, meeting with cartel money brokers in American streets, parking lots or shopping malls to collect cash, often wrapped in plastic heat-sealed bags and heavily perfumed to mask the odor of narcotics from sniffer dogs. 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Bloomberg
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- Bloomberg
Balance of Power: Europe Races to Leverage Trump's Support
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