He handed them the DAS comparison on a platter
Petro claimed intelligence reports showed de la Espriella meeting with Thomas Greg & Sons owners to exchange passport contract favors for electoral support algorithms. Opposition figures and legal experts interpreted the tweets as admission of illegal wiretapping, comparing them to the infamous DAS surveillance scandals under Álvaro Uribe.
- Petro alleged intelligence reports showed de la Espriella meeting with Thomas Greg & Sons owners to exchange passport contract favors for electoral algorithms
- Opposition figures interpreted the tweets as admission of illegal wiretapping, comparing them to DAS surveillance under Álvaro Uribe
- Formal complaints filed with Chamber of Representatives, Prosecutor's Office, and Ombudsman
- Petro's own allies admitted uncertainty about whether the intelligence reports actually existed
Colombian President Gustavo Petro's tweets alleging intelligence reports linking opposition candidate Abelardo de la Espriella to illegal dealings triggered accusations of unlawful surveillance and sparked formal investigations.
President Gustavo Petro broke a week of campaign silence with a series of tweets that would reshape the final stretch of Colombia's presidential race—and immediately invite accusations that he had confessed to illegal surveillance. In his posts, Petro alleged that intelligence reports documented meetings between opposition candidate Abelardo de la Espriella and the Bautista brothers, principal owners of Thomas Greg & Sons, the company that holds Colombia's passport contract. According to Petro, the two sides had struck a bargain: the Bautistas would receive their lucrative passport contract back in exchange for providing de la Espriella with electoral algorithms designed to secure him the presidency.
The President wove this claim into a broader critique of the Prosecutor's Office, which had recently requested suspension of the passport contract with Portugal's Casa da Moeda. Petro connected the dots in his own way, suggesting the Prosecutor's reluctance to act against de la Espriella reflected a coordinated effort to protect him. He also took aim at de la Espriella's running mate, linking him to the fiscal mismanagement of the previous Duque administration. The tweets were lengthy, detailed, and unambiguous in their accusation.
What Petro may not have anticipated was how his own words would be read. Within hours, opposition figures seized on a single, devastating interpretation: if the President possessed intelligence reports documenting private conversations between de la Espriella and the Bautistas, then the government must be conducting illegal wiretaps. Representative Katherine Miranda posed the question directly: "Is this an admission that you are intercepting Abelardo de la Espriella's communications?" Senator Mauricio Gómez Amín, aligned with de la Espriella's campaign, went further, calling it the first time in Colombian electoral history that a sitting president had publicly confessed to surveilling a presidential candidate.
The accusation carried historical weight. Colombians remembered the DAS scandal—the notorious illegal wiretapping operations conducted by the intelligence agency during Álvaro Uribe's presidency, which had led to the agency's dissolution under Juan Manuel Santos. The parallel was immediate and damaging. Petro's own allies, when asked by journalists whether such intelligence reports actually existed, admitted uncertainty. Some read the tweets as a tactical move to revive de la Espriella as the central opposition figure, after rival candidate Paloma Valencia had surged in recent polling and emerged as a stronger potential challenger to the Historic Pact's Iván Cepeda in a runoff.
The legal response came swiftly. Germán Calderón España, a lawyer for the group Defensores de la Patria, filed a formal complaint against Petro with the Chamber of Representatives' Investigation and Accusation Commission, alleging unlawful interception of communications. The same charges were lodged with the Prosecutor's Office and the Ombudsman. De la Espriella's campaign issued its own statement, framing the President's words as an attack on a candidate running without adequate security guarantees or the ability to campaign freely across the country.
Opposition figures closed ranks. Paloma Valencia wrote directly to Petro, warning that his claims about intelligence reports involving private conversations of citizens, businesspeople, and political actors had opened "a profoundly dangerous precedent." Other prominent voices joined the chorus, reminding the President that state intelligence apparatus exists to protect national security, not to spy on political opponents. Mauricio Cárdenas, a former finance minister, offered a technical correction: the National Intelligence Directorate cannot conduct targeted interceptions of politicians. Only the police, through their Esperanza platform, can do so—and only with a judge's authorization following a Prosecutor's request.
What had begun as a presidential tweet about alleged corruption had become something larger: a test of whether Colombia's democratic institutions could contain the use of state power against political rivals, and whether the line between intelligence and persecution remained meaningful at all.
Citas Notables
Is this an admission that you are intercepting Abelardo de la Espriella's communications?— Representative Katherine Miranda
First time in the history of a presidential campaign that a sitting president has publicly confessed to surveilling a presidential candidate with the possibility of reaching the highest office— Senator Mauricio Gómez Amín
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
When Petro tweeted about those intelligence reports, did he actually have them in hand, or was he improvising?
His own allies told journalists they didn't know. That's the telling part. It suggests he was making a move, not reading from a file.
So he may have just... invented the premise?
Or he was speaking from rumors, or fragments. The point is, he said it publicly in a way that sounded like confession. He gave his opponents the weapon they needed.
Which was?
The accusation that he's running an illegal surveillance operation. He handed them the DAS comparison on a platter—the thing that destroyed an entire intelligence agency twenty years ago.
Why would he do that if he knew how it would land?
Maybe he didn't think it through. Maybe he thought the allegation itself would stick to de la Espriella and overshadow the method. But in Colombia, the method is the scandal.
And now?
Now there are formal complaints in three places. The opposition is unified. And everyone's asking whether the government is actually listening to their phones.
Is it?
That's the question no one can answer anymore. Petro made it impossible to know.