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The former anti-corruption prosecutor was extradited on May 17, 2018 and sentenced in 2019 to 48 months in prison in that country. He awaits a 4-year sentence for corruption. He was arrested for the crimes of concussion and improper use of privileged information.
This Friday, December 4, 2020, the former anti-corruption prosecutor Luis Gustavo Moreno arrived deported from the United States, after paying a sentence of 48 months in prison in that country for the crimes of conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy to commit bank draft fraud, and bank fraud. Moreno’s sentence was handed down in January 2019 after he and his partner, lawyer Luis Pinilla pleaded guilty for having asked for $ 100 million, in the United States, from the former governor of Córdoba, Alejandro Lyons, in exchange for providing him with confidential information on a file against him.
Upon stepping on Colombian soil, Moreno was detained by the authorities for the crimes of concussion and corruption and was transferred to the bunker of the Attorney General’s Office in Bogotá, where he will remain detained. The former anti-corruption prosecutor was captured June 27, 2017 and extradited on May 17, 2018. In Colombia, Moreno has a sentence of 4 years and 10 months in prison imposed by the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice for his participation in the corruption scandal called the Toga Cartel.
(It may interest you: Gustavo Moreno, sentenced to 48 months in jail in the United States)
It is a criminal organization made up of lawyers and apparently former magistrates of the Court itself, who directed high-profile processes in exchange for large sums of money. Moreno was convicted in 2018 for the crimes of concussion – when a public servant takes advantage of his position to demand money – and for improper use of privileged information. Said conviction was ratified in July 2020 by the Court itself after being granted the right to challenge the decision.
The sentence imposed on Moreno includes a fine of 143.74 monthly legal minimum wages. And it was expressly stated that the penalty discount would only begin to count once you define your legal situation in the United States. The Supreme Court, in the conviction, reproached Moreno for having used his public position and his position for criminal acts in the so-called toga poster since this causes “discredit and delegitimize a judicial branch.”
(You may be interested: Supreme Court ratifies the sentence against Luis Gustavo Moreno)
“The Court cannot miss this opportunity to express its perplexity at behaviors such as the courts, in which a high-level official within the hierarchical structure of the Attorney General’s Office, precisely in charge of fighting corruption, so defrauded the credibility of the social conglomerate in its officials and institutions, especially in those in charge of administering justice, “said the Court at that time. Currently, the former magistrate of the high court Gustavo Malo is on trial for allegedly belonging to that criminal network.
In fact, former prosecutor Luis Gustavo Moreno is a star witness in several processes that are advancing in the Colombian justice system for the so-called “toga cartel”, as a result of an agreement that the former official reached with the Attorney General’s Office, which is why he received a half worth discount. In that sense, Moreno is a witness in the trial that is advancing in the Trial Chamber of the Supreme Court against Gustavo Malo Fernández, who ceased to be a magistrate of that high court on November 21. He is also a witness in the trial against the former president of the Supreme Court, Francisco Ricaurte, which is advancing in the Paloquemao courts in Bogotá. And in the process that is followed by former senator Álvaro Ashton.
Likewise, Moreno is the main protagonist in the accusation that the Investigation and Indictment Commission of the House of Representatives issued last November to the former president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Leonidas Bustos, who is outside the country. Said accusation points to Bustos as the brain of that cartel after having more than 36 testimonial evidence, among them that of Moreno; and former senators Musa Besaile (who agreed to deliver a $ 2,000 million bribe), Hernán Andrade, Senator Germán Barón Cotrino, former attorney general in charge Fabio Espitia, and magistrates of the high courts.
(It may interest you: The unpublished confrontation between Leonidas Bustos and Gustavo Moreno)
In November 2017, Moreno and Bustos had a confrontation of almost six hours full of pearls, mutual accusations and unexpected revelations that this newspaper revealed in July 2019. In the diligence Bustos interrogated Moreno and there was a strong clash between them and in her Former prosecutor said: “I understand the defense spirit of Dr. Leonidas Bustos, but there was not only a friendship; We had an office with Dr. Francisco Ricaurte and within that office we carried out acts of corruption ”. After a crossing of ironic remarks by Bustos towards Moreno, the former prosecutor replied that without the social friction and the contacts that Bustos and Francisco Ricaurte gave him, it would have been impossible for him to have powerful parliamentarians as clients in his barely thirty years.
Moreno explained the strategy they used to give him prestige: “I was a young teacher with a fresh knowledge of criminal law, but I did not have access to this scenario of power, congressmen, senators and representatives. What they did was make me known inside the Court [Suprema] introducing myself to magistrates of the Civil Chamber, the Labor Chamber, the Criminal Chamber … In fact, we once chatted at the house of Dr. Ruth Marina [Díaz] with some magistrates of the Criminal Chamber, with the outgoing Defense Minister, who later went to Washington, Dr. [Juan Carlos] Finch; they were promoting me so that our actions in the future would not be branded as corruption ”.
Bustos asked him who he had been to Moreno. And he told him that, even against the circumstances, he continued to consider him as his father, while expressing his “gratitude because, regardless of the guilt that I must assume and the degree of criminal responsibility, he was a mentor and for It was not easy for me to make the decision on the collaboration framework, because it implied betraying the people who had given me a vote of confidence and who had welcomed me ”. At that moment, Bustos asked him: “Please tell this commission who recommended you for the position of anti-corruption prosecutor before the nation’s attorney general?” Moreno replied: “Doctor Leonidas, you and I know who did it and for what purpose (…) I am not coming to fight with your honor, I am telling the truth; you know who nominated me, if you wanted to say it here you can say it. It wasn’t you. “
