The Attorney General´s Office achieves the assets seizure process of properties that would be part of the illicit assets of the paramilitary structures

Precautionary measures were obtained on six assets valued at almost 74 billion pesos, that would belong to the so-called ‘Casa Castaño’. The former mayor of Medellín, Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, appears as the owner of four of the properties

At the request of the Attorney General’s Office, the Superior Court of Bogotá imposed precautionary actions for assets seizure purposes on six rural properties related to Vicente Castaño Gil

The properties are located in Rionegro and El Retiro (Antioquia), and are part of a land valued at nearly 74 billion pesos, known as Torrealta.

These precautionary measures are considered to be the ones with the largest amount of assets in the history of the implementation of the Justice and Peace process.

In the investigation, the Directorate of Transitional Justice´s prosecutors established that the former mayor of Medellín, Luis Pérez Gutiérrez, appears as the owner, among other people, of four of these properties in their respective registration.

One of the assets was denounced by the ‘postulado’* for the Justice and Peace Law, Rodrigo Alberto Zapata Sierra, alias Ricardo, who stated that the land was related to Vicente Castaño, after the collection of a debt between drug traffickers Gustavo Tapias Ospina, alias Techo; and Édgar Marroquín, alias Marroco.

After accepting the arguments presented by the Office of the Attorney General, the Court ordered the seizure and suspension of power to alienate a property  which will be delivered to the so-called Fondo para la Reparación a las Víctimas.

The Office of the Attorney General makes this information public for reasons of general interest.

When we speak, results follow.

The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out the criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004.

*Postulado: a term used to refer to demobilized members of illegal armed groups who postulated to obtain a benefit from the Justice and Peace Law.