Before the Fifth Criminal Municipal Judge in Bogota, acting as supervising judge, the lawyer Margarita Pabón Castro and the image consultant Daniel Angel Rueda, both members of the Colombian marketing giant “DMG” group, were charged with conspiracy to commit crimes by the Seventh Prosecutor assigned to Money Laundering Unit.

The Seventh Prosecutor, during a public hearing, said that after the investigation it was necessary to charge the two defendants with the other crime, since is about an offence underlying to the money laundering, by which they were already convicted.

According to the accusation, Margarita Pabón Castro, as a lawyer of “DMG”, offered to hide real state and personal property, giving the appearance of legality to such operations. In the same way, she would have coordinated the method to pass to her personal account at least 5 million dollars obtained through illegal fundraising. “The company was set up with the purpose of carry out illicit actions,” said the Prosecutor.

The above mentioned defendants designed strategies of each of the companies in order to achieve the transfer of the illegal money and to pay to third parties to provide their names, and in that way to create new companies, explained the representative of the accusing entity.

Also, they gave money to support candidates’ campaigns and destroyed evidences through which the illegal enterprise could be discovered. “The two accused were part of a criminal enterprise, which was dedicated to the illegal fundraising, deceiving hundreds of thousands of Colombians”.

Pabon and Angel did not accept the charges.

Also during the hearing, the Judge rejected the approaches of invalidity submitted by the Defense against the accusation of conspiracy to commit a crime.

Concerning the violation of procedural rights formulated by the Defense, the Judge said that there are similarities in the trial related to conspiracy to commit a crime and the money laundering by which they were already sentenced.

The judge clarified that the proceedings for conspiracy to commit a crime arouse in the wake of the sending of copies issued by a specializing court requesting to investigate the two defendants for an offence other than money laundering.

At no time, fundamental rights violation arises, the judge conceptualized, who said that there is a coincidence and a factual similarity between the trials related to money laundering and conspiracy to commit crimes.