Shortly after finishing his administrative term, the mayor of El Copey, Francisco Manuel Meza Altamar, will be prosecuted for alleged corruption. The president was captured for contracting with a company that belonged to him.
According to the investigation, during 2020, the mayor awarded around 14 contracts to the companies Fundación para el Desarrollo Social y Productivo, Fundecop, and Servicios Integrales del Caribe SAS, of which in the first he was the owner, manager and even legal representative.
In addition, the second company was owned by the brother of the mayor, Marciano de Jesús Meza Altamar and the former secretary of Social Inclusion, culture, sports and recreation of the municipality, Belkis Leonor Jiménez Nieves.
The irregularities would have been noticed by a citizen who filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office. In this way, the entity concluded that the president had agreed with the former secretary Belkis Leonor Jiménez Nieves and Antonio María Andrade Zambrano, former legal representative of Sicarcol SAS, and controlling partner of the company, in order to benefit them with contracts of more than $4,000 million .
The authorities considered that the mayor violated Law 80 of 1993, which regulates transparency in public procurement in the country. The Prosecutor’s Office requested before a judge the arrest warrant against the president, which materialized on Thursday morning in a CTI operation.
Along with the mayor, Belkis Leonor Jiménez Nieves and Antonio María Andrade Zambrano were captured. The three must answer for the crimes of undue interest in the celebration of contracts in homogeneous and heterogeneous competition with an aggravated criminal conspiracy.
The detainees were transferred to the Immediate Reaction Unit, URI, of the Valledupar Prosecutor’s Office, where they will be presented before a guarantee control judge to be prosecuted.