POLICE MAKE ARRESTS IN WIRETAP SCANDAL

C O N F I D E N T I A L BOGOTA 003455 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/11/27 TAGS: PREL PGOV KCRM CO SUBJECT: POLICE MAKE ARRESTS IN WIRETAP SCANDAL REF: BOGOTA 3185 AND PREVIOUS CLASSIFIED BY: Mark Wells, Political Counselor; REASON: 1.4(B),(D) (C) On November 26, the Colombian National Police, with support of the DEA Bogota Country Office, arrested three individuals and were looking for a fourth in connection with the wiretaps scandal (reftel). The four suspects were OswaldoVillamilTorralba, Ferney Galvis Garcia, Aldo Francisco PerezYosa, and Edwin Nicolas Acuna Chitiva.AcunaChitiva remains at large. The four are accused of using the legal wire intercept system known as Esperanza to illegally tap the phone of Supreme Court Auxiliary Magistrate Ivan Velazquez, who was leading the "parapolitica" investigation of ties between paramilitaries and the Colombian Congress. Investigators believe that Villamil, a Colombia National Police (CNP) official who had worked in an Esperanza listening room, had conspired with his longtime neighbor Perez, an official at the National Technical Corps (CTI, the Prosecutor General's judicial police force),to intercept Velazquez' phone. Villamil allegedly bribed CNP official Galvis to carry out the intercepts in the listening room.Galvis had to involve his CNP supervisor, Acuna, in the process. Galvis, Acuna, and Perez signed the official order that piggybacked Velazquez' number onto a wiretaps in a legitimate investigation. Police investigators believed these arrests would unearth new information about the purpose of intercepts and who ordered them. BROWNFIELD