The cornerstone of investigation carried out by the Supreme Court of Justice against the former senator and today a candidate, Piedad Córdoba, there are 10,514 emails, documents on the web and chats intervened with a legal order to three people.
In November 2010, the Colombian portal Time revealed several of those communications where there was talk of alleged transfers from Venezuela. Which would have been used at that time for Piedad Córdoba’s campaign expenses for the Senate.
At the time, the newspaper published that one of the people mentioned in those emails was Nilton Polanco Lasso. This is the legal representative of the Led Media company in Colombia. That company was a clone of a company of the same name established in Valencia, Venezuela. And its owners, Carlos Balilla Battistini and José Antonio Battistini, would have sent the money to accounts in Colombia.
The investigation revealed that María Alejandra Meza Luna, who appeared as the person who coordinated the transfer of money from Venezuela, would have sent $300,000 to Polanco at the end of 2009. That money was allegedly used for campaign expenses, , the purchase of an armored van and political tours.
Time established that the Supreme Court has just located Polanco to clarify that information. But this newspaper was able to speak with him before he appears before the high court.
In a telephone communication, this man, from Chaparral (Tolima), began by clarifying that he never received the $300,000 mentioned in the investigation. And that, although he met Piedad Córdoba and her former advisors Andrés Vásquez Moreno and Ricardo Montenegro, he broke off all relations with them once the emails were made public.
He acknowledged that he was at least four times in the ex-congresswoman’s apartment in Bogotá. And that in those meetings punctual issues of the campaign were agreed upon.
The charters of Piedad Córdoba
“They published some messages in which they talked about some t-shirts. By order from Venezuela, 2,000 red shirts were made for the Piedad Córdoba campaign. That cost, if I remember correctly, about 3 million pesos,” said Polanco.
He explained that although he was the legal representative of Led Media in Colombia, Carlos Balilla Battistini and José Antonio Battistini, the heads of the company in Venezuela, were the ones who made the decisions on what the money they sent to the company was invested in. .
According to documents held by the aforementioned media, the company was opened in 2009 and had assets of 1,000 million pesos. Polanco had one percent and the rest appeared in the name of Aderito Lopes Enriques.
In December 2009, Polanco Lasso wrote to Andrés Vásquez and Ricardo Montenegro, former advisers to the Senate candidate, that he did not owe them an explanation.
“Until today I authorize the red shirts, so that they are ready for the event (…). I am the legal representative of the company in Colombia and I only receive orders from my bosses in Valencia. Which are coordinated between the doctor and them,” Polanco wrote at the time.
Only eleven years later, after Time located it, Polanco gives his version of the mail.
Polanco’s version of the post office
He said that Vásquez and Montenegro spoke of large sums of money that would have moved between 2009 and 2010. But that it was never through their company accounts. He assured that he did not find out if there was business between the Battistini and the former congresswoman. But he did say that he was responsible for paying, with checks, the charter flights that his Venezuelan bosses shared with Córdoba.
“Everything is visual, I saw that the senator left with some businessmen on a flight to Venezuela. What were they going for, no idea. What was rumored was that it was related to business issues,” said Polanco.
He explained that he was assaulted in good faith because, contacted by Venezuelan businessmen who wanted to expand their business in Colombia, he agreed to be the legal representative of Led Media in the country. But that he was never informed about the intentions of the bosses of him.
While it is being decided whether he will be officially summoned to testify before the Supreme Court of Justice, Polanco Lasso explained that he is willing to give the authorities his version of the events. And that since 2010 he had no further contact with Córdoba, Vásquez or Montenegro.
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