The congresswoman-elect would carry $68,000 in cash that she had not declared to the authorities
They detain Piedad Córdoba at the Comayagua airport, in Honduras. Photo: Colprensa – Álvaro Tavera
The senator-elect Piedad Córdoba was held at the Comayagua airport in Honduras. After the authorities subjected her to the X-ray control, they realized that she had an amount of dollars that she had not declared just before taking a flight to Panama, where she would make a stopover to get to Bogotá.
< p class = “paragraph”>The National Migration Institute (INM) of Honduras confirmed the news to the national and international community. “Piedad Córdoba has been provisionally detained for investigation for carrying US$68,000 that was not declared,” reads a press release. They also recalled that it is mandatory to declare foreign currency after 10,000 dollars, in the case of Colombia.
The entity indicated that the money would belong to a Colombian businessman who resides in the city of Tegucigalpa. “He is being summoned by the Honduran State Prosecutor’s Office to give his statement and to follow the corresponding legal procedure, he added.
Piedad Córdoba would have entered the country on the 21st of May and even met with President Xiomara Castro. Now, the Honduran authorities will be in charge of determining what the sanction of the senator of the Historical Pact will be, which can be the same declaration of foreign currency, a fine or even an arrest in the foreign country.
Piedad Córdoba’s response
Blu Radio spoke with the senator about the money she had in cash and according to her, it corresponds to a consultancy fee. After authorities noticed the money, an officer in charge “counted the bills one by one,” the news outlet explained. The procedure lasted about three hours.
When the senator was questioned about what was reported by the Honduran authorities, she replied that: “That is not true, at all, that is false. I handed over the money myself because I was going to pay the exit tax.”
Also read: Pullas, extradition of Piedad Córdoba , pensions and allegations of fraud marked a flat debate by the Presidency of Colombia
Other controversies of Piedad Córdoba
The situation adds to the process that Córdoba faces before the Supreme Court of Justice for a possible political favor when negotiating the release of the kidnapped of the extinct FARC. He also faces two other policies for: with Alex Saab and the money investigated from the Venezuelan regime with Alex Saab, and for allegedly having offered money to convicts from La Picota, where his brother, Álvaro Córdoba, remains.
On April 20, the presidential candidate for the Historical Pact, Gustavo Petro Urrego, asked the congresswomanto suspend his activities in the campaign while he solved his legal problems. “I request Piedad Córdoba to suspend all her activities within the campaign, until she can resolve, hopefully, favorably, the legal charges made against her”, the candidate stated.
In this regard, the senator-elect commented in an interview in El Tiempo that, “there is no conviction against me and because I am innocent, I am confident that I will win the legal war against me.” For her, the situation has to do with the electoral contest that the country is experiencing. “The charges are only part of the legal and political war against the possibility of an alternative government,” she added.
On May 29, the presidential elections will be held in Colombia. Citizens will go to the polls to vote for one of the candidates who are in contention: Gustavo Petro, Federico Gutiérrez, Rodolfo Hernández, Sergio Fajardo, Enrique Gómez and John Milton Rodríguez.