PAE supplied donkey and horse meat to children from Bucaramanga and Santander



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The Office of the Attorney General of the Nation evidenced an illegal activity that represented a serious risk to the health of students who benefit from the PAE in Bucaramanga and other municipalities of Santander.

According to information released in a statement, the children were supplied with horse and donkey meat in their food rations.

According to the investigating body, a merchant in the region identified as Fernando Trujillo Gómez, alias El Padrino or El Gemelo, would have structured the deception.

The investigations of the Specialized Directorate against Human Rights Violations of the Prosecutor’s Office, in joint work with the Directorate of Protection and Special Services of the National Police, revealed that Trujillo Gómez, in association with other people, bought horses and donkeys, many of them sick or dead, on the Atlantic Coast.

Apparently, with false mobilization guides, he moved the animals to Bucaramanga and slaughtered them there. The meat was treated with chemicals to alter the texture, try to make it softer and give it a reddish color. Then they vacuum packed it and put stamps on it from companies dedicated to the commercialization of beef. As a beef product it was invoiced and supported to distribute it.

Through this deception, alias El Padrino or El Gemelo sold between 2,000 and 2,500 kilograms of meat weekly to PAE operators in Bucaramanga and Santander. The illegal activity would have been carried out between May 2018 and September 2019, and it represented income of more than 500 million pesos.

Judicialization

A Prosecutor of the Specialized Directorate against Human Rights Violations charged Fernando Trujillo Gómez with the crimes of food corruption in a homogeneous and simultaneous contest on 18 occasions, procedural fraud and falsehood in a private document.

During the concentrated hearings, the Prosecutor’s Office presented communications between the defendant and his alleged accomplices, in which he asked to inject the meat with more chemicals because it was very tough and the schools could not cook it; as well as messages in which he coordinated the evasion of phytosanitary controls to mobilize horses and donkeys, among other illegal activities.

Given the abundant probative material and the physical evidence obtained in almost two years, the guarantee control judge imposed on Trujillo Gómez an assurance measure in a prison.



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