Abraham Rico Pineda, the Son of Congressman Raúl Pineda Arrested

Abraham Rico Pineda has been located, arrested, and will be detained for at least six months, because according to Judge Justo Vargas there is a risk of flight, neglect of the process and destruction of evidence.  His defense attorneys offered bail for release, use of a bracelet and even house arrest, to no avail.  At the hearing for the indictment, legalization of the arrest and precautionary measures held Wednesday, it was argued that Rico Pineda was evading justice, because he knew that they would raid his house located in Albrook, because a day before the diligence, a telephone tapping revealed that he told his domestic employee to take money out of the safe and that if they asked about him, she should say that he had gone to the beach, but to take a copy of the warrant. His lawyers warned that he did not represent a flight risk and that his rights had been violated when he arrived at Plaza Ágora; but the judge responded that the violation of rights had already been resolved, and that what they were asking for was a pseudo surrender because it was already known that Rico Pineda was being sought for Operation Jericó.  Abraham Rico Pineda is now charged with money laundering in the Jericó case. But how did he end up in this situation?  Everything started with the investigations carried out by the Drug Prosecutor’s Office, through monitoring and wiretapping. On May 18 of this year, they detected conversations in which the sending of $89 thousand dollars to Colombia was discussed, which supposedly came from drug-related crimes.

According to the investigation, Abraham Rico Pineda arrived in a car at the company Servicios Múltiples Rama, located in Betania, with a black briefcase and a white reusable bag, which according to the Prosecutor’s Office contained money, to deliver it to a Colombian.  On the afternoon of May 20, Jonathan Parra, a Colombian national, was arrested on the Transístmica highway.  Another wiretap recorded a conversation between Abraham Rico Pineda and his father, Congressman Raúl Pineda, where he informed him to call “Fulo” because the Colombian had been arrested, according to the transcripts of the interceptions presented by the prosecution at the hearing.  In the conversation, Abraham Rico Pineda reportedly expressed concern that the recipients of the money would think that they had “thrown him out of the government.”  The prosecution explained at the hearing that the Colombian had reached a plea agreement for money laundering resulting from drug-related crimes. The judge said at the hearing that Jonathan Parra’s plea agreement is key to supporting that Rico Pineda would be linked to the coordination of the delivery of the money, but his defense argues that the money was for the construction of a house and its plans.  In addition, the Prosecutor’s Office alleged that Rico Pineda has participation in the boards of directors of the companies Soluciones y Entregas de Transporte, Mecsa and Servicios Múltiples Rama, and that the latter would have supposedly been used for the stratification of money for alleged money laundering and drug trafficking.