Uribe government knew about corruption in tax office

[Judi Lynn]

Uribe government knew about corruption in tax office
Friday, 15 July 2011 10:01
Matt Snyder

New information has been released that suggests the Uribe government in 2009 already knew about corruption by officials at the Colombian tax authority DIAN that according to the current administration has cost the state $340 million.

According to the radio station, the Uribe administration received a report from Colombia's tax and customs police DIAN in 2009 that alerted the government to the shell companies used by the 12 tax officials who were arrested on Thursday for embezzling funds that according to President Juan Manuel Santos accumulated to nearly half a billion dollars.

According to media, nearly $4.3 billion was embezzled.

The report listed the names of the shell companies and revealed that although they had no physical addresses and existed only on paper they had requested significant VAT refunds from DIAN.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/17669-uribe-government-knew-about-corruption-in-tax-office.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...the Uribe administration received a report...". Yikes!

Report went straight to the mafia don.

Is this one of the many reasons that one of Leon Panetta's first actions as CIA Director was to visit Bogota and give Uribe the hook?

Just. Too. Dirty.

Although corruption alone wouldn't bother a CIA Director (they rather prefer it, I would imagine--it gives them control), and very likely mass murder of trade unionists and other advocates of the poor, illegal domestic spying, massive displacement of peasant farmers with state terror, and other crimes benefiting U.S. corporations and war profiteers, wouldn't bother a CIA Director either, nevertheless, the sum total of what the Bush Junta was funding in Colombia, with $7 BILLION in U.S. taxpayer money, could well present a P.R. problem. Thus, Uribe had to go. I think there's something more to the U.S. (Obama/Clinton/Panetta) protection and coddling of Uribe--probably what he knows about U.S./Bush Junta crimes in Colombia. But you gotta just be kind of open-mouthed at the STAGGERING amount of crime and corruption that this "U.S. ally" was involved in, on every front. Some 70 of his closest political cronies are under investigation or already in jail, for ties to the death squads, drug trafficking, bribery and other crimes. His spy chief, and the chief spying witness against him, Maria Hurtado--who now has an Interpol warrant out against her, requested by Colombian prosecutors--fled to Panama (where Uribe crony, President Martinelly, gave her instant asylum as a "political refugee"--very likely with a U.S. okay or even assistance). They were spying on EVERYBODY--including judges and prosecutors--and very likely making up "hit lists" for murder and threats of murder. And, like the Bush Junta, "venal" crime--the 'disappearance' of billions of dollars, some of it just vanishing, some of it scooped up by the cartload in phony government 'contracts'--lay beneath the cauldron lid of war crimes, boiling off the country's wealth.

Truly staggering, what they did here, and what they and their tool did in Colombia. And despite the horror, you gotta laugh at this "debt ceiling" business. Jeez.

How about this? How about we compel the Uribe organization and the Bush Cartel to pay off the U.S. deficit?

Seriously.

[Judi Lynn]

2. They must long for the good old days, when they could intimidate people enough

that they either fled the country or kept their mouths shut!

Since the little Prince was denied a chance to run for the 3rd term by the Colombian Supreme Court, upon whom he spied, of course, he has made himself scarce there, too, just like his cabinet members, and his two heads of his secret intelligence (don't forget Jorge Noguera who had to be nabbed in Spain by Interpol).

Pathetic.