On Saturday 10 October, Colombia’s president, Abelardo De La Espriella, ordered the Air Force to investigate claims that former first lady Verónica Alcocer secretly used official aircraft to fly to Venezuela. The order puts military investigators and other state institutions on the trail of allegations involving presidential power, cash and possible drugs. None of those claims has been proven.
Eva Ferrer, a former government adviser, told Semana that Alcocer was “the hidden head of a group that used presidential power for profit.” Asked whether Alcocer led a mafia, Ferrer said, “As of today, I say yes.” She hasn’t publicly produced the documents or photographs she described, and no one named in the claims has been charged.
The aircraft and the allegation
Ferrer’s most specific account concerned a trip to Venezuela in January 2023. She said Manel Grau, a Catalan businessman close to Alcocer, told her Alcocer brought back US$2.5 million. Ferrer said part of the money was intended for a campaign by Mario Fernández Alcocer, a politician and Alcocer’s cousin. Her account of the money rests on what she says Grau told her.
Ferrer also said, “It seems there are photos of Verónica getting off the plane with grey suitcases that had drugs inside.” She didn’t show the photos. Asked whether the trips used state aircraft, she said they flew on “the presidential one or the first lady’s one.” No one knows whether official flight records support her account, or whether Grau would comment.
The Air Force’s Inspector General and counter-intelligence units will examine current and former crews of CATAM, the military air transport command that flies official aircraft. De La Espriella said the government would remove members found involved from service and require them to answer to the courts. That’s the government’s announced response, not proof that a flight, payment or crime occurred.
A widening circle of institutions
De La Espriella also asked the Attorney General’s Office, the Supreme Court and the Procuraduría, the public-conduct watchdog, to act within their powers. He made the same request of “the authorities of the United States.” By Saturday, the Attorney General’s Office hadn’t said whether it would open a case, and it wasn’t clear what U.S. agencies would do with the request. The Supreme Court handles cases against sitting members of Congress.
Ferrer, a Spanish political strategist who worked on the communications team of Petro’s 2022 campaign, later served as a presidential adviser and also advised Alcocer personally. In her 10 October 2026 interview with journalist Vicky Dávila of Semana, she linked people around Alcocer to arms dealing, named Italian businessmen and accused her circle of selling jobs in state bodies, including the oil company Ecopetrol. These are allegations, not established findings.
Ferrer said she spoke out because she feared for her safety. She told Semana that a caller once asked whether she wanted to be shot and that she had been in hiding for two months. Her account comes amid a dispute over her own claims: veteran Colombian journalist María Jimena Duzán said on X that Ferrer gave her a “different version” in a podcast interview on 14 August. Duzán suggested the new interviews aimed to pressure Alcocer’s circle into paying fees Ferrer said she was owed. In the August interview, Ferrer said she was owed four months of fees and denied using threats to obtain money or a job.
Political pressure, unresolved claims
Senator Christian Garcés, a member of Centro Democrático, urged Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo to open an inquiry on her own initiative. Senator Germán Rodríguez of Salvación Nacional said Alcocer could end up in prison. Their demands add political pressure. They don’t prove the accusations are true.
Alcocer had denied Ferrer’s earlier accusations. After Semana published audio recordings of Ferrer in August, Alcocer wrote to Attorney General Luz Adriana Camargo that the claims “lack any basis and do not correspond to reality,” and offered to cooperate with prosecutors. Petro, then still president, called the reports a slander that should be answered with criminal action, La Silla Vacía reported. Agmeth Escaf, a congressman from the Caribbean coast whom Ferrer also accused, rejected the claims, saying she attributed “very serious crimes” to him without public evidence. He said a civil lawsuit and a criminal libel complaint against her were under way.
The allegations also intersect with a U.S. sanctions case. The U.S. Treasury designated Alcocer, Petro, Petro’s eldest son Nicolás Petro and former minister Armando Benedetti under counter-narcotics rules on 24 October 2025. Colombian media reported all four remained on the list after a recent update. Their assets in the United States are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from dealing with them. The Air Force probe now turns on evidence the public account says hasn’t been established: whether the flights happened as described, whether the photos exist and whether official records back Ferrer’s claims.