Colombia’s president, Abelardo De La Espriella, ordered an Air Force investigation on Saturday 10 October into claims that former first lady Verónica Alcocer secretly flew to Venezuela on official aircraft and used presidential power for profit. The allegations haven’t been proven. The person who made them hasn’t shown the documents or photos she described, and no one named has been charged over them.
Eva Ferrer, a former government adviser, made the claims in an interview with journalist Vicky Dávila of Semana, published on 10 October 2026. Ferrer said Alcocer was the hidden head of a group that moved cash, drugs and weapons. Asked whether Alcocer led a mafia, Ferrer replied, “As of today, I say yes.”
The alleged use of state resources
Ferrer’s most specific claim 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 said 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.” The available account said officials hadn’t established whether flight records supported her account or whether the photos exist.
Ferrer also 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. The interview didn’t establish those allegations as fact.
The state response
De La Espriella, a conservative lawyer who succeeded Petro in August, said he had asked the Air Force commander for an “exhaustive investigation” of the events described by Semana. 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 officials would remove members found involved from service, and those members must answer to the courts.
He 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.” The Attorney General’s Office hadn’t said by Saturday whether it would open a case, and it was unclear what U.S. agencies would do with the request.
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. Both parties are conservative; former president Álvaro Uribe founded Centro Democrático.
Earlier disputes and sanctions
Ferrer said she spoke out because she feared for her safety. She told Semana a caller once asked whether she wanted to be shot and that she had been in hiding for two months.
María Jimena Duzán, a veteran Colombian journalist, said on X that Ferrer had given her a “different version” in a podcast interview on 14 August. Duzán suggested the new interviews were intended 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.
Alcocer had denied Ferrer’s earlier accusations. After Semana published audio recordings of Ferrer in August, Alcocer told 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. Congressman Agmeth Escaf, whom Ferrer also accused, rejected the claims and said a civil lawsuit and criminal libel complaint against her were under way.
The allegations also come amid 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. Their assets in the United States are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally barred from dealing with them. The available account said Grau hadn’t commented.