The former mayor of Bogotá, Samuel Moreno Rojas, recently passed away in the city of Bogotá, where he was serving his sentence for bribery and undue interest in contracts after verifying his corrupt actions in the maximum position of the capital. In his last days, they were locked up, denying his participation in the “recruitment carousel” that embezzled the city.
But to go to the last moments of the former president, it is valid to remember where Samuel Moreno comes from. He was born on February 11, 1960 in Miami, a particular place for a Colombian who would later be mayor of the capital. This particularity was due to his political family context.
Son of María Eugenia Rojas and Samuel Moreno Díaz, he grew up in a powerful nucleus within the national political reality. His mother, daughter of former President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, had to go into exile with her husband and father in the United States, which is why the former mayor was born in that country.
Samuel Moreno, former mayor of Bogotá convicted of corruption, died
From a young age with politics in his veins, he moved to Colombia where he began a promising career at that time within the national diplomatic confines. He was an important figure in ANAPO, Alianza Nacional Popular, a party founded by his grandfather. While studying law, he was youth coordinator, Bogota district coordinator and national coordinator, in turn he was head of debate for his party in the campaigns of the liberals Virgilio Barco and César Gaviria. In 1991 he became a senator of the Republic, reelected in 1994, 1998 and 2002.
Consolidated as a political figure, he joined the Polo Democrático Independiente, a left-wing party with which he won the mayoralty of Bogotá in 2008. After settling in the Liévano Palace, his government started without major obstacles. However, in 2011 the then prosecutor, Alejandro Ordoñez, suspended him for three months, this, after an investigation was revealed that involved him in alleged corruption.
The Prosecutor’s Office accused him of extortion, embezzlement and undue interest in contracting and a Bogotá Court ordered him to be provisionally detained.
The case in which he was involved was the “Recruitment Carousel”, which was uncovered by the then congressman Gustavo Petro. As verified by the Colombian justice, Samuel Moreno participated in the delivery of most of the works contracts in Bogotá to the assignment of Los Nule, who would give million-dollar bribes to the president and other officials involved in exchange.
Nearly $175,000 million pesos, according to the Comptroller’s Office, was the loss that Bogotá had due to said corruption. In 2012 he was formally accused of these crimes, where the participation of his brother, Iván Moreno, was also known. In 2016, he was also sentenced for having received more than $2.7 billion from a contract from the city’s Health Financial Fund.
He was sentenced to 24 years in prison. Where he spent the last days of his life. His image became the representation of Colombian political corruption, his case is perhaps the most famous and remembered of national shame. In his last appearances, he did not escape controversy, in 2016 he was seen on the streets of Bogotá, where a citizen rebuked his “freedom” in that place.
After his conviction, his most recent appearance was in 2021, when the reduction of his sentence to 11 years and 10 months in prison was confirmed.
Finally, this February 10 at 62 years of age, suffered a myocardial infarction in his cell at the Police Carabineros station. Samuel Moreno died in the ICU of the Military Hospital, where he arrived without vital signs.
Regarding the last place where he spent his life, he recently told his relatives, according to the newspaper El Tiempo: “The place of confinement was one of the most beautiful in the city (the Police School in the hills), but it was still a jail”.