Former Colombian Foreign Minister Alvaro Leyva accused President Gustavo Petro of having been a client of a human trafficking ring in Lisbon and directly labeled him the “head of the mafia.” The claim, made in a lengthy public letter released on April 10, comes in response to the Prosecutor’s Office’s decision to bring him to trial for alleged misconduct in the passport bidding process.
Leyva accuses the president of leading a “brutal persecution” against him, after many months of confrontation involving the man who was the first head of diplomacy in Petro’s government in 2022, a rift that has continued to deepen since his departure from the government in early 2024.
Following several similar accusations, these are now allegations of extreme gravity, without publicly known evidence, that move the conflict into an explosive arena with potential legal consequences.
Former minister Leyva accused Colombia’s Petro of being a client of a human trafficking ring
The controversy and differences between the two political leaders date back to Alvaro Leyva’s departure from the ministry, under pressure from the controversy over the passport bidding process, in a case whose ramifications continue to this day, with the non-renewal of this concession to the company Thomas Greg & Sons, leading to an investigation into alleged misconduct against Leyva.
Since that moment, the former minister’s defense has been based on launching harsh accusations against his former boss during his time in government, many of them centered on alleged addictions and questionable behavior by the president, something that has been rumored, for now without any evidence, for years.
However, the document published today, with a harsh and personal tone, includes accusations that escalate beyond his previous statements. Leyva not only insists that he is the victim of political persecution, but also attributes illegal conduct and improper behavior to the president, using language that breaks with the usual standards of public debate among senior officials.
This is not the first time the former minister has resorted to this type of allegation. In previous weeks, he had already suggested the existence of personal problems on the part of the president and questioned his behavior in the exercise of power. However, the reference to an alleged human trafficking ring in Europe introduces a particularly sensitive element that could give rise to legal actions for defamation and slander.
Leyva, who describes Petro as “an infamous being” and “the head of the mafia that has plunged Colombia into its darkest hours,” recalls having assumed the post of Foreign Minister with expectations of change, but states that he soon came to know “his life of vice and decadence.” “It took me time to understand his vileness and, surely, also to denounce it,” he laments.
In this regard, he details episodes in which, according to his account, Petro was allegedly involved in inappropriate conduct: “International human trafficking is a scourge afflicting poor girls in Colombia, and he, in the middle of a state visit, ends up as a client of a brothel in Lisbon.”
Repeating accusations he has already made in the past, Leyva maintains that the president “goes out into the public square drugged, drunk on alcohol and sectarianism, to mistreat and insult his detractors, while in the United States his ties to drug traffickers are being investigated.”
In his description of the Colombian head of state, the former minister attributes to Petro the use of hate-filled rhetoric to violently divide society and accuses him of fostering a “homeland trampled by its own president.”
COMUNICADO pic.twitter.com/7YYhoHJD4B
— Álvaro Leyva Durán (@AlvaroLeyva) April 10, 2026
The Prosecutor’s Office’s charges against former minister Leyva
According to the Prosecutor’s Office report, Alvaro Leyva allegedly issued administrative acts contrary to the law, despite the fact that the temporary consortium led by the private firm Thomas Greg & Sons met all the required conditions and was the sole bidder, obtaining the highest score after 17 years of managing the contract. From the Prosecutor’s Office’s perspective, Leyva acted with intent by deliberately interfering in the continuity of the contract.
The criminal proceedings arose from his decision to declare the 2023 tender for the production and issuance of passports void, a move that triggered not only his departure from office in January 2024, but also the resignation of then–Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia, who served between January and July 2025.
Leyva argues that the sanction the Prosecutor’s Office seeks to impose “would mark a dangerous shift for public service,” as it would set a precedent whereby any official who declares a tender irregular could face prison sentences.
For Leyva, “the globalization of this thesis would have serious consequences for institutional stability: If that thesis is accepted, the official who declares a tender void because they find the bidding terms unconstitutional or illegal must go to prison.”
“I fulfilled the obligation to apply the Constitution that I myself helped draft and, for seeking equality, I acted with intent. The world turned upside down,” he exclaims in his public statement.
Accusations against Luis Gilberto Murillo, his successor at the ministry
The former minister also uses the statement to accuse his successor, Luis Gilberto Murillo, of halting a valid and ongoing tender, subsequently creating a state of manifest urgency that, in his view, was unnecessary and facilitated direct awards with an “overcost of close to 30 billion pesos (approximately US$8.2 million).”
He also questions the purchase of software for more than an additional 10 billion pesos (approximately US$2.7 million) which, he claims, “was lost.”
In Leyva’s view, this set of events explains the origin of the current crisis in the passport system, a situation he says he had already anticipated to the Government.
The former minister maintains that the administrative collapse is the result of the “permissiveness and lack of oversight” of the current administration, reinforcing the idea that decisions made after his departure worsened the problem.
“I left a new, transparent, and legal tender underway, which Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo halted. With that decision, the door was abruptly opened to the passport crisis we are experiencing today. I warned Petro about what was coming for the country, but there was no response,” he stated.