This PWS story is by Colombia Reports executive editor Adriaan Alsema
How Colombia’s Vice Attorney General is protecting an alleged drug trafficker
Colombia’s deputy Prosecutor General Martha Mancera is protecting a prosecution executive who has been accused of drug trafficking, according to evidence that was made public by Colombian news website Revista Raya and journalist Daniel Coronell.
Francisco Javier Martinez, a.k.a. “Pacho Malo,” is the former director of the Technical Investigations Unit (CTI) in the Pacific port city of Buenaventura. CTI is an investigative team that forms part of the Attorney General’s Office and investigates drug crimes— but internal investigations by the AG’s office accuse Martinez himself of narco-trafficking.
Or at least they did until Mancera squashed it.
Pacho Malo’s alleged involvement in the drug trade was discovered by three undercover agents who had infiltrated his alleged drug trafficking organization.
One of the agents, Mario Fernando Herrera, formally reported the accusations to his superior, Counternarcotics prosecutor Jaime Hernan Ocampo, on March 25 2021.
In the six-page document, which is now public, Herrera says that Pacho Malo offered one of his undercover colleagues his services in smuggling cocaine shipments of up to 300 kilograms via smuggling containers in the Buenaventura port— the largest in the country.
“Upon obtaining said information, verification processes were deployed to establish the veracity of the information provided by the undercover agent, which is credible, and taking into account the degree of danger conceived by the same, human sources residing and working in the municipality of Buenaventura and others who have provided relevant information on events in the port of Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca were consulted, and that he is head of the Technical Investigation Corps Unit (CTI) and that his name is Francisco Javier Martinez Ardila, that this is very sensitive, that he has links with criminal organizations in the municipality and that he is very feared.”
From the internal AG report on “Pacho Malo”
The regional CTI director also offered to sell the undercover agents cocaine that had been seized by authorities, including his office.
The day after filing the report, Herrera was assassinated by EMC guerrillas while he was undercover in the southwestern Cauca province. His two colleagues, Fabio Gonzalez and Pablo Bolaños, narrowly escaped.