I raised him. He started as a dependent and became a partner.
A former DEA/FBI informant known as 'Boliche' allegedly defrauded international drug traffickers of $700,000+ by falsely promising to reduce their sentences, with a Colombian attorney identified as his accomplice. The Colombian attorney is Daniel Peñarredonda, a trusted partner and protégé of presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella, who has not responded to inquiries about his involvement or knowledge of the scheme.
- Daniel Peñarredonda, partner at De la Espriella's law firm, identified as unindicted co-conspirator in Tampa fraud case
- Former DEA informant Jorge Luis Hernández (alias Boliche) accused of defrauding drug traffickers of $700,000+ by falsely promising reduced sentences
- Abelardo De la Espriella, right-wing presidential candidate polling second ahead of May 31 Colombian election, has not responded to inquiries
- Boliche worked as paralegal in De la Espriella's Miami office while allegedly running the fraud scheme between 2020-2025
- De la Espriella's firm also represented Alex Saab, Venezuelan businessman accused of money laundering for Nicolás Maduro
Daniel Peñarredonda Gómez, a senior partner at the law firm of Colombian presidential candidate Abelardo De la Espriella, is identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a federal fraud case involving a former DEA informant who defrauded drug traffickers of millions of dollars.
In a federal courthouse in Tampa, Florida, a case is unfolding that reaches directly into the inner circle of a man running to lead Colombia. The defendant is Jorge Luis Hernández Villazón, known as Boliche—a former drug trafficker turned DEA informant who, according to prosecutors, spent years defrauding other traffickers of millions of dollars by promising to reduce their prison sentences. What makes the case significant is not just Boliche's crimes, but who allegedly helped him do it: Daniel Peñarredonda Gómez, a senior partner at the law firm of Abelardo De la Espriella, the right-wing presidential candidate currently polling in second place ahead of Colombia's May 31 election.
Peñarredonda, 42, has been identified in court documents as "Coconspirator 1"—an unindicted co-conspirator who worked with Boliche to extract money from desperate drug traffickers. According to the indictment, filed in mid-2025, the scheme was straightforward and brutal. Boliche would approach traffickers facing extradition to the United States and promise them sentences of just two to four years, or even house arrest. He would guarantee results. When the traffickers paid—sometimes $700,000 or more, delivered in cash, vehicles, and jewelry—nothing happened. The sentences never materialized. The promises were lies. Peñarredonda, the court documents suggest, was his partner in this fraud, accepting payments alongside Boliche from at least one trafficker who believed he was buying his freedom.
The connection between Peñarredonda and De la Espriella is not casual. In a recent podcast interview, De la Espriella described discovering Peñarredonda at age 18 and mentoring him into partnership. "I raised him," De la Espriella said. "He started as a dependent and became a partner of the firm and was a good friend." A 2023 corporate registry shows Peñarredonda holding 3 percent of De la Espriella Lawyers Enterprise, while De la Espriella holds 91 percent. The firm, established in 2018 in Coral Gables, Florida, has built its reputation defending high-profile clients accused of drug trafficking and corruption—most notably Alex Saab, the Venezuelan businessman whom the U.S. alleges was a front man for Nicolás Maduro. Peñarredonda was instrumental in Saab's defense, serving as his liaison when Saab was arrested in Cape Verde in 2020 and later welcoming him to freedom in Miami after President Biden's controversial pardon in 2023.
When Univision Investiga contacted Peñarredonda and De la Espriella with detailed questions about the Tampa case, neither responded. De la Espriella's campaign lawyer and press office confirmed receipt of the inquiry on March 29 but offered no answers. The candidate's defense attorney, Silvia Piñera Vásquez, declined to confirm or deny Peñarredonda's identity as Coconspirator 1, saying only that she could not respond to specific questions. What is clear from court records is that Boliche was a regular visitor to De la Espriella's office in Coral Gables. A photograph circulating in Colombia shows him there alongside De la Espriella and José Luis Chilavert, a former Paraguayan national soccer goalkeeper.
Boliche's history is a portrait of a man who has lived multiple lives, each more consequential than the last. Born into Colombia's drug trade, he rose through the ranks of the paramilitary AUC, sending cocaine to the Caribbean by speedboat. He admitted to trafficking roughly 10,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States. Then, in 2000, facing a death threat from a rival trafficker named César Cura, Boliche made a choice that would reshape his trajectory. He paid the assassin double what Cura had offered to kill him instead. Days later, Cura was found dead. Boliche walked into the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, confessed his crimes, and became an informant. For 25 years, he worked for the DEA and FBI, recruiting sources, facilitating the seizure of thousands of kilograms of cocaine, and orchestrating more than 20 arrests. His work was valuable enough that the government paid him $9,000 a month.
But Boliche's relationship with his handlers deteriorated. In 2008, the DEA "deactivated" him, citing violations including identifying another informant and giving an interview to a Colombian media outlet. Unemployed, without legal status, and apparently bitter, Boliche drifted. He traveled to Venezuela in 2009, returned illegally to Florida in 2010, and was arrested. While detained in an immigration facility, a U.S. Navy intelligence officer interrogating him began asking for loans—first $5,000, then $10,000—while reminding Boliche that his deportation was pending. Boliche recognized extortion when he saw it and reported it to the FBI. The Navy officer, José Emmanuel Torres, was eventually convicted and sentenced in 2014. Boliche, meanwhile, had found his way back into the system as a cooperating witness and paralegal in De la Espriella's Miami office.
The Tampa indictment alleges that between 2020 and 2025, Boliche used this position to run a sophisticated fraud operation. He threatened some clients to pressure them for payment. He leaked information about other traffickers' operations so that his clients could benefit by informing on them—a practice known in the informant world as "selling positives." He implied he worked for the FBI and DEA. When traffickers complained that promised results weren't materializing, he blamed the Colombian attorney—Peñarredonda. According to the FBI agent who signed the indictment, the government possesses WhatsApp messages between Boliche and his co-conspirators, a covert recording of Boliche explaining the scheme, prison calls, and financial documents. The indictment also alleges that when Boliche learned he was under investigation, he told a co-conspirator: "If there's a problem with me, I'm going to trial. I want the witnesses to testify so I can see who they are. I have a lot of money and I can have them killed."
De la Espriella's campaign platform centers on a hard line against narcotics trafficking through collaboration with U.S. authorities. Yet the documented presence of Boliche in his office, the involvement of his trusted protégé in an alleged fraud scheme, and his firm's history of representing major traffickers create a contradiction that his campaign has chosen not to address. The court documents reviewed by Univision contain no reference to De la Espriella's knowledge of or participation in Boliche's scheme, and no evidence has emerged suggesting the candidate himself was involved. But the silence from his camp—the refusal to answer straightforward questions about what his partner knew and when he knew it—leaves the question hanging as Colombians prepare to vote.
Citações Notáveis
I raised him, because I discovered Daniel Peñarredonda. At 18 years old he started with me as a dependent, became a partner of the firm, and was a good friend.— Abelardo De la Espriella, in a podcast interview
A proven history of several years of abusing the trust that federal law enforcement authorities placed in him, enriching himself through fraud.— Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Baeza, describing Boliche's conduct in the Tampa case
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does it matter that a presidential candidate's law partner is named in a fraud case? Couldn't this just be guilt by association?
Because the partner isn't a distant connection—he's someone the candidate mentored from age 18, made a partner, and publicly called a "great friend." And the fraud involved millions of dollars extracted from drug traffickers by someone working in their office. That's not association. That's proximity to a scheme.
But the candidate himself isn't accused of anything. The documents say there's no reference to his knowledge or participation.
True. But when a journalist asks him directly whether he knew about it, whether he benefited from payments made to the scheme, whether U.S. authorities have questioned him—and he refuses to answer—that silence becomes part of the story. Especially when his entire campaign is built on being tough on narcotics.
What about the informant, Boliche? Is he just a criminal who turned on other criminals?
He's more complicated than that. He was a trafficker who became genuinely valuable to the DEA and FBI for 25 years—he helped seize thousands of kilos of cocaine and orchestrate dozens of arrests. But then he was deactivated, cast out, and apparently bitter. That's when he seems to have pivoted to fraud. He used his credibility as a former informant to con other traffickers.
So he was exploiting his own reputation?
Exactly. He'd tell traffickers he could reduce their sentences because he'd spent decades working with federal agents. They believed him because his history was real. The fraud worked because the foundation was true.
What's the most damaging part of this for De la Espriella?
Not that his partner was involved in fraud—that's bad, but it's one person's actions. The damaging part is that his firm has a documented pattern: Boliche worked there, Alex Saab worked there, and now we learn that a major fraud scheme was being run from that office. And when asked about it, De la Espriella says nothing. For a candidate running on law and order, that's a credibility problem.