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(CNN Spanish) – The president of Colombia, Iván Duque, reported this Thursday that the authorities arrested four Venezuelans who are allegedly involved in “acts of destabilization in Colombian territory” to “delegitimize the institutions of the State.”
The president said that the group’s actions were “promoted and financed by the dictatorial regime of Nicolás Maduro,” according to a statement from the Colombian presidency.
The document reported that the suspects – three men captured in Bogotá and a woman apprehended in Barranquilla – would have advanced the formation of “Venezuelan military groups in Colombia to carry out illicit actions.”
The Government of Colombia did not identify the detainees, but said they were allegedly linked to “trafficking, carrying arms and ammunition for the exclusive use of the public force,” and that they had obtained intelligence information that “was sent to the neighboring country.”
According to Colombian authorities, the arrest was the result of an investigation that began on March 23 on the Barranquilla-Santa Marta highway, when weapons and other equipment for military use were seized.
This material, as CNN was able to determine in an investigation, was part of the weapons that Captain Robert Colina Ibarra would receive, one of the men who died during the failed Gideon operation, which sought to overthrow the questioned President Nicolás Maduro.
The detained woman would have been “the logistically responsible for the organization and for generating international contacts with the aim of buying weapons and, likewise, carrying out operations that were unsuccessful against the Colombian State,” the statement explained.
In Venezuela, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza on Thursday described Duque’s comments as “impudence” and assured that the detainees were “mercenary Venezuelan deserters.”
“For 2 years we gave them precise information on terrorist operations and they never lifted a finger. They protected them. And that’s how they pay those traitors, ”Arreaza wrote on Twitter.
The arrest of Venezuelans in Colombia represents the latest chapter in tensions between the two countries.
At the end of August, Duque claimed to have information that the government of the questioned Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, had managed the purchase of missiles through Iran.
Venezuela denied the accusations and described the statements of the Colombian president as “infamies and anti-Venezuelan fiction to distract public opinion.”
Days later, Maduro said on the national chain about the purchase of missiles: “Really, this idea by Iván Duque is not bad.” She added: “It hadn’t occurred to me.”
Alfredo Meza contributed to this report
