After reports based on DEA records surfaced on Friday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro faced a fresh wave of allegations in the United States, with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration naming him a “priority target” in an expanding federal probe, according to records and people familiar with the matter described by The Associated Press.
The AP reported that the designation is reserved for suspects DEA considers to have a “significant impact” on the drug trade, and it said it was unclear when the agency gave Petro that label. The report tied the designation to investigations running alongside a New York-centered inquiry into alleged connections between Petro’s representatives and drug traffickers, the AP said.
According to DEA records reviewed by the AP, Petro surfaced in multiple investigations beginning in 2022. The report said some of those investigations relied on interviews with confidential informants and included allegations that Petro may have had dealings connected to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, as well as to Venezuela’s “Cartel of the Suns,” a term used for a loose network of corrupt, high-ranking military officers.
The AP also reported that the DEA records cited alleged schemes connected to Petro’s “total peace” plan, including allegations that the plan could be used to benefit prominent traffickers who contributed to Petro’s presidential campaign. The records, the AP said, also suggested the use of law enforcement to smuggle cocaine and fentanyl through Colombian ports.
On the question of whether prosecutors have implicated Petro in a specific crime, the AP said the inquiry was at an early stage and that it was unclear whether it would lead to charges. The report said federal prosecutors in Brooklyn and Manhattan have been questioning drug traffickers about their ties to Petro, including allegations that Petro’s representatives solicited bribes at La Picota, a Colombian jail, in exchange for promises that traffickers would not be extradited to the United States.
The AP further reported that one person familiar with the inquiry told the outlet that it was not clear whether federal prosecutors had implicated Petro in any crime. The DEA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and U.S. federal prosecutors declined to comment, the AP said.
Petro, who the AP described as a former rebel leader who took office promising to reduce Colombia’s dependence on fossil fuels and redirect state resources toward addressing poverty, denied the allegations. The AP reported that Petro wrote on X that U.S. legal proceedings would ultimately dismantle accusations from the Colombian far right, which he said is the group actually involved with traffickers. He also maintained that he never accepted drug traffickers’ funds during his campaign.
Colombia’s Embassy in Washington, meanwhile, downplayed the reporting, according to the AP. The embassy said in a statement: “The reported insinuations have no legal or factual basis.”
The AP’s report placed the U.S. inquiry within a wider pattern of Colombian investigations involving Petro’s family and alleged negotiations with imprisoned traffickers. It said Colombia’s authorities have for years investigated members of Petro’s family for possible criminal acts, including that Petro’s son, Nicolás Petro, was charged in 2023 with soliciting illegal campaign contributions from a convicted drug trafficker, a case Nicolás Petro has pleaded not guilty in.
The AP also said Petro’s brother, Juan Fernando Petro, had been implicated in secret negotiations alleged to have taken place with imprisoned drug traffickers to shield them from extradition to the United States in exchange for disarmament. In addition, the AP reported that records it reviewed cited a 2024 interview with an unnamed source who alleged that Petro used former campaign aides and officials from the state-run oil company Ecopetrol to launder presidential funds into foreign countries.
Ecopetrol President Ricardo Roa denied those allegations in a statement to AP, saying they “lacked all reality or logic,” according to the report. The AP added that the New York Times had reported the federal probe earlier Friday.
Beyond the current U.S. case, the AP described Colombia’s political history as long entangled with cocaine trafficking. It cited episodes from the 1980s onward, including the election of drug trafficker Pablo Escobar to Colombia’s Congress and the later illegal donations tied to the presidential campaign of Ernesto Samper by rivals from the Cali cartel.
The AP also described the 19th of April Movement, the urban guerrilla group Petro belonged to, as having long faced suspicions of receiving money from Escobar’s Medellin cartels as part of a deadly 1985 siege of Colombia’s Supreme Court, while saying Petro did not participate in the attack and that leaders of the group have denied any links to cartels.