Lord Alejandro | Translation

► Click here to return to the episode official page, or here to see all the episodes.

► Join Deambulantes. Our membership program help us continue covering Latin America.

►Do you listen Radio Ambulante to improve your Spanish? We have something extra for you: try our app, designed for Spanish learners who want to study with our episodes.

---

Translated by MC Editorial

[Daniel Alarcón]: This is Radio Ambulante from NPR. I’m Daniel Alarcón.

The city of Medellín has a future duke. And I am not referring to the surname, but to a title of nobility created directly by the Spanish Crown in the fifteenth century. A title that was passed on from generation to generation, until it reached a Colombian.

But he only brings it up with a very select group of acquaintances.

[Kelly Córdoba]: And then he told us about the Duchy of Cardona.

[María Angélica Carbacas]: Yes, my grandfather came to have the title of Duke of Cardona.

[Andrés Vasco]: Who apparently left Spain because of the Civil War.

[Kelly]: And he knows the story inside and out.

[Andrés Vasco]: That man leaves Spain, settles in Costa Rica. Then he continues down, he gets to Panama, then he gets to Colombia and once here, the man becomes very rich.

[Daniel]: This duke… well, the heir to the dukedom, is called Alejandro Estrada Cardona. He is 28 years old. But the information available about him ends there. If you try to search for more data, you probably won’t find anything. This future duke is not like other members of the nobility. Let’s just say that he is not a public figure. He is not followed by paparazzi, he does not give exclusive interviews, and he does not do charitable works either. In general, he has a low profile.

Although among that select group of people who know him, he does not go unnoticed.

[María Angélica]: He is a person who always feels the need to be liked by everyone and to give a good impression.

[Andrés]: Alejandro is a person who has a very high ego, and the man is like one of those people who, in some way, try to pretend they have a superior socioeconomic status.

[Kelly]: He worries too much, a lot, about his physical appearance, about being well combed, about being well groomed, his eyebrows, everything. And mostly, of always being dressed in name brands. He is like a walking brand-billboard.

[Daniel]: We’ll come back to these voices, but for now let’s focus on the last one we heard: Kelly Córdoba. She is a lawyer and was a professor at the law school of a university in Medellín for several years. She clearly recalls the exact moment when she began to be close to the future duke.

It was in August 2019, at the university where she worked. One day she entered the professors’ lounge where her office was, and in front of her cubicle she saw Alejandro and a lady talking with one of the professors. Kelly already knew Alejandro. He had been a student in one of her classes, though he hadn’t stood out academically from the others.

[Kelly]: He wasn’t the best in that subject, so I didn’t identify him as someone who participated a lot in class or anything like that. At that time he did not leave any impression on my memory.

[Daniel]: Much less did she know about the title he could get. Kelly assumed the woman with him was his mother, but she wasn’t interested in the conversation they were having with the other professor. She simply walked past them, without interrupting, and sat in her cubicle.

A few minutes later, her colleague asked her to come over. 

[Kelly]: “Let me introduce you…” and he says, “Oh, I know her already. Hi, professor, how are you? Let me introduce you to my mother.” “Oh, nice to meet you. Olga Cardona.” And I said, “Nice to meet you.”

[Daniel]: The professor explained to Kelly that Alejandro was asking him about a medical liability case. It was personal. He’d had some cosmetic surgery on his nose a few months back, and due to malpractice, some obvious physical damage was showing. He wanted to know how to file for legal redress.

But the professor had no experience in such cases and was not sure what to do. That’s why he asked Kelly for help. She didn’t handle that kind of issue, either, but whenever something that she didn’t master came up, she turned the cases over to her husband’s law firm.

[Kelly]: He said, “Oh, OK, professor.” The lady was very kind, very caring, very elegant. She said, “Thank you very much. Nice to meet you.” All very normal. And I made the appointment.

[Daniel]: Kelly imagined that it would be a legal consultation like any other: a few more clients she took to her husband, one more case they would probably end up winning, and that was that.

But meeting the future duke and his mother didn’t end up being a—shall we say—glamorous experience.

[Kelly]: Hopefully in the future I can laugh and say, “Oh, the would-be duke,” and I will be able to laugh it off. But now it’s not funny. Why did I go into the professors’ lounge? Why didn’t I go to the restroom? Why didn’t it occur to me to go get a glass of water? Why didn’t… why didn’t I go somewhere else?

[Daniel]: Because if she hadn’t run into him that day, in that situation, maybe she wouldn’t have to be telling this story.

After the break, our senior producer David Trujillo will tell us more.

[MIDROLL]

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. Here’s David: 

[David Trujillo]: A few days after the meeting with Kelly, her husband, Andrés Vasco, met Alejandro and Olga in his office. During the meeting, they told her that the surgery was done because his nose had been broken by a blow, but his body did not react well to the procedure. In addition, he insisted that some threads that had been placed on him were clearly coming out, and that would affect his public image.

At first glance, Alejandro and Olga did not make any particular impression on him, but upon hearing their story, he did notice something.

[Andrés]: From the way they told the story, they gave me the impression of being people of means. 

[David]: Alejandro mentioned that they associated with rich and famous people.

A colleague of Andrés who later met with them to calculate the damages also noticed the same thing:

[Andrés]: That guy seems to be rich. His look was an expensive look, he had some shoes, I don’t know what, and the lady too, she had a Louis Vuitton bag, anyway… 

[David]: They estimated that the damages for the malpractice were over 17 thousand dollars, a figure that is not insignificant. They agreed to continue with the process and make the firm their legal representative. 

Since then, Kelly continued to communicate with them. 

[Kelly]: There are clients who say, “Okay, let me know when there is any progress,” and there are clients who call sporadically. These are the kind of clients who are 100% on top of things. In constant communication. 

[David]: They spoke on the phone, via text messages, they used voice messages, they interacted in person… And at all the meetings, virtual or face-to-face, both of them were always there: Alejandro and Olga. 

[Kelly]: What I noticed is that he had a mother who was very aware of everything, but I mean, everything. Mother and son were always, always together. They went to all the meetings.

[David]: Kelly went with them to the first settlement hearing—where, by the way, they got nowhere. And over time, other queries were added to the medical issue. For example, at the beginning of 2020, Alejandro told her that he wanted to start a health food business.

Kelly, who was a professor of business law and gives advice on the matter, saw no problem in explaining to him step by step what he should do. Alejandro followed the instructions to the letter and started his business. But then he came back with another legal issue, this time related to the owner of the premises he had leased. He needed to hire Kelly and her husband again to represent him. They accepted again, no problem.

The relationship began to get closer and closer, and Kelly and Andrés were becoming the ones in charge of putting out the fires that Alejandro lit—which seemed to be quite a few.

[Andrés]: “That guy is so problematic, and those are the kinds of clients we need: clients with money, who have problems with enough people to hire us for life,” I told Kelly at the time. Because he was a person that you could tell was clashing with a lot of people.

[David]: Now, with them there were no problems. They always paid on time for those services. Kelly and Andrés were not sure where the money came from, because Olga was not working at the time and Alejandro was just starting his business. They had been told that Alejandro’s father was a well-known politician in the area. Even Kelly’s aunt, who was married to another politician, later confirmed that she had met Olga when she was young and she was Alejandro’s father’s girlfriend. That was where the money probably came from.

Be that as it may,  Alejandro and Olga began involving Andrés and Kelly in their social life. They invited them to expensive restaurants where they were known, and even took them to luxury brand events. One day, Olga said something to Kelly that caught her attention:

[Kelly]: “I can’t tell you much, but I am putting together a team of professionals to accompany my son for a future project that is coming—something… some things he has to attend to regarding the future of the family. And I was thinking of telling you to join the team as a lawyer. So don’t worry, there will always be work and with us, and you will have a job opportunity.”

[David]: Kelly thanked her for the offer but didn’t ask for details. If she said that she couldn’t tell her much, caution was in order.

But little by little, in casual conversations, Olga and Alejandro gave them more information. It was a legacy. They explained to Kelly and Andrés that in a short time Alejandro was going to receive what his Spanish grandfather, that is, Olga’s father, had left him.

Olga told them the story that we mentioned, in broad terms, at the beginning: that her father’s name was Venancio Cardona, and that he left Spain during the Civil War. He arrived in Central America, where he increased his fortune with sugar production. Later he emigrated to Colombia and settled there permanently. Venancio had left a large inheritance to his children when he died. He had already left Olga money and properties. Alejandro was very young at the time, but because he was the only male grandson, his grandfather had left him a special legacy, that is, something in addition to his inheritance. In his will he wrote that he would give him money—a lot—and companies—many—and other properties—also many of them.

Of course, they did not know exactly how much that legacy was worth, but Olga assured them that when he received it, Alejandro would be one of the five richest young people under 30 in Europe.

But they asked for discretion. This whole issue of the legacy had generated tension with other people, especially with the rest of the family, and they had distanced themselves. They also said that when Alejandro turned 18, the Economic Administrative Court of Madrid, the entity that they said was in charge of handling that legacy, mistakenly released a part of it—almost 28 million dollars—which it deposited directly into Alejandro’s bank account. 

[Kelly]: And that he saw a lot of money in his accounts and he went crazy buying things, like crazy. So that generated an alert on money laundering and then the Prosecutor’s Office got involved.

[David]: When banks see movements of money that seem suspicious to them, such as 28 million dollars that are spent rapidly, they issue an alert to the legal authorities, and the Colombian Prosecutor’s Office can start investigating whether there are any illegal businesses.

[Andrés]: And this led not only to the freezing of Alejandro’s assets, but also to the freezing of part of the family’s assets.

[Kelly]: So, since it had been an act of immaturity and squandering on Alejandro’s part, his grandmother and his aunts got very upset with him.

[David]: There was an additional piece of information—one that we also mentioned at the beginning of this episode. Alejandro had the possibility of paying some fees to get his grandfather’s title of nobility: the Dukedom of Cardona, which is over 500 years old. That part of the story sounded a bit strange to Kelly and Andrés, but more like an eccentricity than anything else. On this side of the world, it is not at all common for someone to hold one of those titles. But, well, in Europe it is different.

Kelly and Andrés started to feel so close to them that it became very  common to have Alejandro and Olga over for a meal, watch movies, hang out… They shared their daily lives and they even involved them in family gatherings. In the midst of all that trust that was strengthening, Alejandro began to talk to them about his debts. He had set up the health food business with loans, but nothing turned out the way he had planned. He got deeper and deeper into debt, and the costs of the business were high. This is Alejandro in a voice note he sent to Kelly in April 2020: 

[Alejandro]: They keep charging me taxes, they keep charging me for a lot of things. And I had to get into a debt of one hundred… 167 million to finish paying some taxes and some things, because despite what I had saved and all, it was not enough.

[David]: 167 million is over 35 thousand dollars. In addition, Alejandro told Kelly that, as sometimes happens in wills, the grandfather had left some very, very specific conditions in order for him to receive the fortune. Among them was one that stated that Alejandro should set up a business on his own. Alejandro explained to Kelly what that was about:

[Alejandro]: What they are asking is simply for me to show an entrepreneurial attitude, and to show that I could create a business by myself, so to speak.  

[Alejandro]: And then start growing the company and show them that I am capable of handling this small one and eventually the largest. 

[David]: But on top of all the problems he had, came the pandemic, and by the end of 2020 the situation was unsustainable. He had to find another business option quickly—one that was profitable. Sell clothes, for example. But for that, he needed money.

The banks did not lend to him so easily, because he already had several outstanding loans. So he decided to ask Kelly and Andrés to lend him almost $6,000 dollars. He could set up the clothing business with that and continue the legacy process.

With the loan, he made them a promise. He would pay them double, with interest, in about four months, which was the time when they estimated the legacy would arrive. Kelly and Andrés accepted. For a little over a year since they met Alejandro, he seemed trustworthy. In fact, he and his mom had paid them for other services. They had him sign a promissory note, to be safe, and they gave him the money.

[Andrés]: At that point, I was lending money to a client, a client who was becoming a friend. At that time it was more a matter of helping him so that he could meet the requirements, and in the end I also wanted, if he really had so much money, for him to owe me a favor. And we lent the money under those conditions.

[David]: With that money, Alejandro went to the United States with his mom. He bought clothes there and returned to Colombia to sell them with his business partner in the health food store, who was also his best friend. 

But the relationship with his partner gradually broke down due to personal reasons and the clothing business ended up failing. Alejandro fell into a depression, mainly for having ended his friendship with his best friend. Olga began to worry that this situation would affect the requirements for the legacy. So Kelly and Andrés returned to put out another fire, and not only in legal matters. From that moment, Kelly took on the emotional support.

[Kelly]: That’s when my empathy as a mother played a big role. The thing is that Mrs. Olga Cardona—it became almost a recurring thing for her to call me in tears: “My poor son, he is suffering so much, he is not doing well. He doesn’t eat, Kelly, call him, give him some advice.”

[David]: Kelly could spend hours on the phone trying to cheer him up… 

[Kelly]: I became Alejandro Estrada’s shoulder to cry on, giving him advice, giving him advice, so I devoted a lot of time to him. He caused me a lot of pain because he looked very bad, very, very bad. “Alejandro, Alejandro, you have to eat, because a person fights with their emotions, but with their stomach too? Let’s eat.” So super-mothering, super-attached to him.

[David]: In February 2021, at Olga’s birthday celebration, they finally explained to Kelly and Andrés what their idea was. They invited Olga and Alejandro to lunch and, while they ate, they again brought up the subject of the legacy in Spain. Alejandro and Olga had a plan: they wanted Kelly and Andrés to help Alejandro manage those companies when he received them.

That was one of the services offered at the firm.

[Andrés]: That was normal to me. Well, let’s say… that’s what families with money often do. They organize, plan, hire lawyers precisely to organize what is going to happen, who is going to run the companies.

[David]: Kelly and Andrés accepted and toasted to celebrate. They were going to help their friends. That’s what they were now: friends with whom they felt very comfortable with and whom they really appreciated.

[David]: Later, at home, they began to discuss the subject more calmly. Beyond the details of the legacy and the process to receive it, they wondered why they had been hired. They had all the money to pay a much larger and more well-known law firm. 

[Andrés]: What was our explanation for that? “Well, we deserve it, and we are lucky, and they want to hire us to help them in this process.” 

[David]: They had managed to earn their trust. What other explanation could there be? And just in case, they even asked Olga directly, and she confirmed it and gave them another key reason:

[Andrés]: That we could possibly have a further role with Alejandro in terms of guiding him. Then Olga said, “Listen, Alejandro will be that son you never had.”

[David]: That male son, because Andrés and Kelly had two girls. They were very aware of what it means to take on that role.

[Andrés]: “Look, he is like a child, he is very young, you can still guide him. Look, his father left a long time ago.” So in a way, they kind of tried to pigeonhole Kelly and me as if we were going to have that role.

[David]: It was obvious that this would no longer be just a business relationship. Kelly made that clear to them several times, like in this voice memo:

[Kelly]: We do it from our heart. As I told Alejo, “It’s one thing to, I don’t know, be an advisor, or provide consulting, and another thing is opening the doors of your own home”, and that is what we are doing, and we do it from our heart. 

[David]: And Olga didn’t stop thanking them for how well they treated Alejandro. This is a voice note they got from her:

[Olga]: God bless you. Really, Kelly, you two adopted my son and that’s… that’s the most wonderful thing, it really is the most wonderful thing. A big hug, a big hug, thanks to you for everything.

[David]: But creating such strong ties had consequences. Olga and Alejandro told them that after the Prosecutor’s Office got involved due to suspicious money transactions, they apparently began to monitor them. They checked their emails, listened to their calls, knew what they were looking for on the internet, followed their financial activities, and could even record conversations on their cell phones. Now, they were warned that they were most likely being monitored as well and that they should be very careful.

[Andrés]: You can’t imagine the trauma that it caused, because it’s as if we are constantly… well, rather, as if we never had any space for privacy.

[Kelly]: And that time became very hard for us because then everything— everything—that had to do with Alejandro became a mystery. The cell phone had to be put in airplane mode. If my husband and I were going to talk about them, then we would put down the cell phone in a bathroom and go to another room to talk. An absurdly awkward situation, 100% awkward. 

[Daniel]: And things going to get much worse…

We’ll be back after a break.

[MIDROLL]

[Daniel]: We’re back with Radio Ambulante. I’m Daniel Alarcón.

David Trujillo continues the story: 

[David]: Despite how stressful the situation was becoming, especially because of the monitoring, Kelly and Andrés decided the important thing was to continue supporting Alejandro, at least until he could claim his legacy. He owed them money and he had promised to pay them more. So it was best that they made every effort so that they could get the money as soon as possible.

April 2021 arrived, almost a year after they found out about Alejandro’s legacy. That would be the date when he was supposed to receive it. But they ended up telling Kelly and Andrés that it was being postponed, that all the requirements had not yet been met, that more paperwork was needed, this and that… all in a very vague way.

In any case, as Kelly and Andrés were not the lawyers in the case in Spain, they had no access to documents or any information. All they knew was from Alejandro and his mother. Although they were concerned about the lack of clarity, Olga insisted that things were going to work out. Here is a voice note from June 2021:

[Olga]: Andrés, the last thing you lose in life is faith. We have to be calm; you can’t lose faith. Let’s wait. What Alejandro needs now is the support of faith, to be calm, relaxed, because he needs to settle all his affairs.

[David]: And in July things seemed to move a bit. Around those days, Alejandro and Olga traveled to Spain to find out details of the process in the Economic Administrative Court of Madrid, which was the entity that was handling the legacy. From there, they told Kelly and Andrés that they had met a court official named Iñaki who wanted to help them get everything resolved by the end of that year at the latest. Perhaps that gentleman would have some interest in money, but at the moment he didn’t seem to have any in particular, just to give them a hand. This is one of the voice messages that Alejandro sent to Kelly explaining more: 

[Alejandro]: This is Iñaki’s email. He told me that any questions we have, including you—I’ll send you the phone number shortly—we should ask him, we can write to him but super-unofficially.

[Kelly]: He shared screenshots of the chat messages he exchanged with Iñaki. In other words, he was like warning him about any possible failure to meet the conditions.

[David]: The most urgent thing was to pay up debts, because the requirements included maintaining a good credit history. But getting money fast was not easy, and the mother couldn’t lend him money either because, according to the terms, he was forbidden to depend on his family’s money. And since they were being monitored all the time, they would probably know of any money movements.

[David]: But his friends could help him, and there were Kelly and Andrés, who, remember, had already lent him almost $6,000.

[Alejandro]: Oh no, I always write to you bothering you and asking you for awful favors. It turns out that I have to pay a pending bill, so we want to know whether I can bother you and you can lend me under the same conditions—I’ll pay you back twice that much. What a shame to bother you, really, I am ashamed. Believe me I have thought about it like 70 times before asking you.

[Kelly]: The mother called me crying desperately: “Kelly, what am I going to do with this boy? I’m desperate, feeling humiliated; he borrows money from everyone.” So my husband and I, being the guardian angels we are, said, “It’s all right, we can help you.”

[David]: Kelly and Andrés began giving him money to pay debts here and there. Part of that money came from loans made to them by some of their relatives. At first, they made Alejandro sign documents committing to pay.

[Kelly]: But the relationship became so close, that in for a penny, in for a pound, like, well, we were invested, so we began to lend him the money and it reached a point where we were no longer writing IOUs. 

[David]: But besides the official who was helping them, there was better news. Alejandro shared a letter from the Madrid Court telling him that he was to appear in a few months. It should be said that this document, with letterhead, signatures and everything, was the first document of the entire legacy case that Andrés and Kelly were able to review. The idea was that a trusted lawyer would accompany him to testify that he had met the requirements. But best of all, they would do a partial release of the legacy. It would be 900 thousand euros, that is, almost a million dollars. Alejandro proposed that Kelly be his lawyer and, since they were going to be there, Andrés could also go and take a vacation.

[Andrés]: I told him “No, man, Alejandro, how am I going to go there? I don’t have any money and even less so with this situation…” “No, but they are going to give us 900,000 euros. We get there and we’ll pay you the money and then you will have it.”

[David]: Andrés was motivated by the payment, but he was concerned about everything that had to be done to get it… In the end, between credit cards, a loan from the firm, another from Andrés’s sister and a business deal with a car, they managed to get everything and travel in November 2021. They would spend a couple of days in Madrid resolving the hearing for the partial release. Then they would travel separately and all meet up again in Germany. From there they would return to Madrid, receive the money, and finally return to Colombia, all very happy.

Alejandro’s court hearing would be a few days after their arrival. But then something happened that didn’t quite square with Kelly and Andrés: Alejandro told them that Kelly couldn’t accompany him because, according to Iñaki, they hadn’t delivered some documents on time. Really? They had planned this trip for months solely for that hearing; they did not understand how they had missed such an important bureaucratic detail.

It all sounded so… strange. It is impossible to ignore it. But for Andrés and Kelly it was about two friends, an almost adoptive son… persons they were so fond of, with whom they had developed such an intimate, trusting relationship… They had opened the doors of their home, of their lives, they were so fond of their daughters… of course they trusted them. And in addition, there was the fact that early in the relationship, they had been paid for their services. They would surely be paid everything they were owed. It was only a matter of time.

They chose to let it go. In the end it was not something so serious: They were there already, and Alejandro could go alone to the hearing. While they waited for him in a cafe near the courthouse, he sent them photos of the place and screenshots of the conversation with Iñaki, who was watching what was happening on cameras. He was congratulating him on his answers and telling him that everything was going perfectly.

Now all that was left to do was wait for the release of the 900,000 euros in a few weeks. With that money, Alejandro would not only pay everything he owed them, but more. They felt happy and optimistic.

Meanwhile, they were going to continue enjoying their vacation. Kelly and Andrés went to Brussels to visit some friends. Three days later, they were waiting for their flight to Germany, where they would meet Alejandro and Olga again. At one point they received an email from Iñaki.

That seemed strange because they had never communicated with him directly. They opened it; it was long and confusing. As they read, they realized that, instead of being paid what they were owed, they were being charged for things that seemed absurd. For example, a pendant that Olga had bought for Kelly—now she had to pay for it. All because Alejandro’s finances had to be in order in the eyes of the Court.

[Andrés]: Oh, that one really got me… in other words, it riled me up, and I said, “They’ve got some nerve.”

[Kelly]: And you could tell my husband was angry. He was pounding his fist and everything. “How can they charge for that, we’re still traveling on my credit card, I paid for this, I paid for it with my sister’s card. In other words, we are still helping in every way we can, and they charge me for that nonsense, for this and that, knowing that I’ve paid.”

[David]: Kelly calmed him down and they set off for Berlin. But the strangest thing of all is that over an hour later, when they landed, they received another email from Iñaki. This one was more… disturbing.

[Andrés]: And in that email they said that they understood my anger, but that it was pretty outrageous for me to get angry.

[Kelly]: “I don’t understand your husband’s annoyance. Monitoring has identified that he was quite annoyed with the issue.” And we were like, “What? How?”

[David]: They couldn’t believe it. They were thousands of kilometers from Colombia, and although they knew about the monitoring and took precautions, they had never really noticed it. 

[Andrés]: At that moment I said, “Damn, those guys really are recording me. Because how could they find out that I got so angry after that email?” I told Kelly, “Well, they have to be very good if they can record us here in, well, imagine, in Brussels.”

[David]: That’s why it was better to calm down, breathe and think with a cool head. They couldn’t ruin the disbursement of the legacy by that kind of reaction. They preferred to discuss it calmly with Alejandro and Olga.

And they did so that same night, once they got to the place they were staying. Kelly and Andrés showed their discomfort with Iñaki’s email. If they were being charged, then it was fair for Alejandro and Olga to pay them everything they were owed, which was much more. At one point, Alejandro stood up angrily and locked himself in his room. The others continued to argue outside.

[Andrés]: And I was getting upset… and I was getting upset… and I was getting upset. And Olga got upset. Then Olga got angry with me and said, “What do you mean? Are you also charging Alejandro for the tickets and the trip?” “Well, Olga, of course. We weren’t supposed to come here for fun. We came to deal with Alejandro’s issues.”

[David]: From the bedroom, locked up, Alejandro sent them screenshots of what Iñaki was writing to him: that they were listening to them on their cell phones, to calm down, not to fight anymore, try to resolve the payment issue as soon as possible. In the end they came to nothing. They each went to sleep and chose to distance themselves for the couple of days they had left in Berlin. They spoke only what was necessary, but there was a tacit agreement that the immediate solution was for Alejandro to receive the advance on the legacy and pay what he owed to Kelly and Andrés.

Everything changed when they returned to Madrid. Alejandro finally confirmed that he had received part of the money. It was not the 900 thousand euros they dreamed of, but it was something. He now needed the bank accounts of the people he owed money to, because he was going to pay them.

And so it was: within minutes, he paid them a part of the money he owed them, over 20 thousand dollars, and also to Kelly’s father, Andrés’s sister, the law firm… in all, he paid over 70 thousand dollars.  

[Andrés]: Somehow trust was… was restored on that day.

[David]: The rest of the legacy money was there, idle, while Alejandro fulfilled all the requirements. You just had to be patient. For the time being, they were going to celebrate.

[Andrés]: So that day, Alejandro was happy. “Come on, there is money now.” So that day we went shopping. You can’t imagine the amount of things they bought that day. There is a photo where we are ready to leave the hotel. The four of us standing there with 11 suitcases.

[David]: Full of things they bought… Now everything was fine.

The Court announced that it would release the money in January 2022, that is, in two months. But for that, Alejandro had already told them that he first had to attend some final hearings with a group of witnesses who would confirm, under oath, that he had met all the requirements. They had to be people who had known him for at least a year, and the Court had to approve them. While in Madrid they thought of María Angélica Cabarcas. She worked at Andrés’s firm and she knew Alejandro well because he had been doing an internship there for a few months to fulfill another of the conditions of the legacy.

Alejandro did not think twice and called her. He explained what she needed and proposed that she travel with him and the other witnesses back to Spain in two months. María Angélica doubted for a moment, but she had several reasons for accepting. 

[María Angélica]: First, my boss is involved in the process. Second, if I say no, what if it really affects him in the process? And third, because Alejandro and I were developing a friendship. So I was just like, “Let’s do it.”

[David]: Other acquaintances of Alejandro’s were added to the group of witnesses, and as soon as they got back to Colombia they began planning their next trip. Alejandro also owed money to some of these people, so they accepted. They were very interested in getting the legacy money.

Iñaki made it clear that, from that moment on, he would no longer communicate directly with Alejandro. From now on, everything would be through Kelly via chat. This way, he was giving her instructions to coordinate the witnesses and guarantee that everything turned out perfectly. She would be a kind of bridge to see that everyone was doing things correctly.

Among Iñaki’s instructions was that they should meet frequently. 

[María Angélica]: They were very emphatic, the Court had indicated that since we were going to be together for so long, we had to start getting to know each other. Then the meetings started. At first they were held virtually.

[David]: And then they met in person. But more debts were added to the preparations for the trip. By December 2021, Alejandro had to pay thousands of dollars in taxes in order to have the legacy money sent to a Colombian account. Once again he applied for several loans, among them, one of over 17 thousand dollars that Kelly and Andrés gave him.

In general, everything was going well. Now something very important was missing: since Alejandro was also going to receive the title of duke, they were invited to a formal dinner with the royal family at the Palacio de la Zarzuela.

Of course, it was not just any event. And of course, everyone had to be very well dressed for the occasion. So Alejandro asked them to go shopping at one of the luxury stores in Medellín where he was a regular client. 

[Andrés]: He had been authorized to buy clothes for up to 25 million pesos for each person, so that we would all be well dressed that day. 

[David]: That authorization of 25 million—over 6 thousand dollars—came from the same Court, and Alejandro would be in charge of paying them back with the legacy money. Meanwhile, the witnesses needed to get that money.

They went to the store several times to try on their clothes and take photos they were going to send to the Royal House for approval… 

[María Angélica]: Because obviously, imagine, what a tragedy it would be if a dress that one of us was wearing was also worn by Letizia.

[David]: That is, Queen Letizia. 

From the beginning they were helped by the store manager, Carlos Orozco, who had known Alejandro and Olga for a few years and knew them to be very good clients. At one point, while he was helping all these people find dresses, pants, shoes and bags…

[Carlos Orozco]: The mother asked him whether they could count on me for the group of witnesses, because there were other people who had been dismissed, and they saw me as a person they could trust.

[David]: They had already told him about the legacy, the process with the witnesses and the hearings in Spain that would be held in January. 

[Carlos]: I saw that everything was very organized because Alejandro relied a lot on a group of friends, and lawyers he was doing his university internship with. I told them, “Well, as long as I have the opportunity and permission from my boss, I will support you.”

[David]: And since they were paying for everything, it was perfect. He could take the opportunity to visit a sister-in-law who lived there. 

The date of the trip was getting closer, and money once again became a problem for Alejandro. For the moment, they had to find some way to pay for the flights and the room and board for 10 people who were going to be there for almost a month. Among some of the witnesses they managed to gather about 50 thousand dollars. As for the clothes, Alejandro suggested to the store that he would pay later, when he received the legacy money. Since they said no, he decided they would buy directly in Madrid.

In January, a few days before the trip, Iñaki told Kelly they should have a training session for the royal dinner. He asked her to find a restaurant in Medellín and an expert in table etiquette to give them a lesson. They all met one night at that place.

They were asked to leave their cell phones outside and then form a line to enter in hierarchical order: at the head of the table would be the king and queen. To their right, would be Alejandro and Olga. Then Kelly and Andrés, and next would follow María Angélica, Carlos, and the others.

[María Angélica]: They taught us how to enter the royal dining room and how to greet them.

[Kelly]: Which side of the chair you sit down from, and on which side of the chair you get up. 

[Carlos]: How to sit, posture, breathing. 

[María Angélica]: If you should laugh or shouldn’t laugh, or if you should talk or refrain from talking.

[Kelly]:  …How to eat the soups, what movement the spoon should make, where you put the spoon after you’ve finished…

[Carlos]: The way to hold the glasses, the order of the silverware. A whole lot of details that must be taken into account when there is a special dinner, particularly one of that caliber.

[David]: They had four delicious dishes, and everyone enjoyed the experience. There was only one unpleasant moment when Alejandro and Olga began to scold the waitresses very loudly for just about anything—that that was not the way food should be served, that they were taking too long, that they had already been to that type of dinner and they were doing everything wrong. Although the tension was evident, none of the witnesses commented on it to the rest, then or later. And that’s how it was from the beginning: no matter how strange the atmosphere felt, they preferred awkward silence and pretending that nothing had happened. They were being monitored, so what everyone was interested in most was not to complicate the legacy thing.

Now everything was ready. They flew to Spain between January 13 and 14, 2022. Each witness was given an envelope with per diem to spend as they wished. Kelly and Andrés were excited about everything to come. Finally, the promises made two years ago were going to be fulfilled. They would not only have the money, but also guaranteed work. Kelly even dropped out of college before the trip. The plan was that she would start working as a consultant in Alejandro’s companies in Spain, with a very good salary. She had everything ready to move in March with Andrés and their daughters.

Taking advantage of the fact that they were gathered there and that the legacy would soon come, Iñaki told them one day to take a trip nearby. Since Alejandro’s grandfather loved Toledo, an hour from Madrid, they decided to go there.

[María Angélica]: While we were on the visit, Alejandro and his mother told us, “Look over there. That castle belongs to my family. An uncle and a cousin are living there today.” 

[Kelly]: “And if they are family, why don’t we drop in?” “No, because this and that… the relationship isn’t good, anyway we’re not very close, and we aren’t going to just show up there and say hello. It’s not like that either.” So we all said, “Oh, OK, fine.” 

[María Angélica]: That was something very picturesque because Alejandro and his mother said, “You all have to take a picture with the castle.” So all the witnesses have the same photo sitting there with the castle in the background. 

[David]: A lovely memory.

But the days passed and the atmosphere began to get uncomfortable. For one thing, the per diem rules were changed, and they had to give all the money to Alejandro for him to manage. But what seemed most strange was that the Court didn’t confirm the hearings and much less the royal dinner. Nothing was clear, and not even Iñaki explained what was happening. Until then no one had met him in person or spoken to him. It was all through the chat. Even when one day he asked Kelly to get them all together and tell them that the hearings, the money release, the royal dinner, had been postponed—everything. The Court asked them to go back to Colombia and return to Madrid in two weeks.

[María Angélica]: Of course, our countenance changed. I was like, “God! I mean, we traveled from the other side of the world, all this time here to have to return in eight days.” So I got very upset. I was completely outraged. 

[David]: Although, like the others, she didn’t say anything at the time. But María Angélica must have made some pretty eloquent gestures, because when she returned to her room, Alejandro looked her up to talk. 

[María Angélica]: And I told him, “I feel it is ridiculous, an insult, to make us return.” And well, practically in tears, he said, “No, María, I’m desperate, and such and such.” And well, I was not going to give him another headache, so I preferred to calm down and that was it.

[David]: Because Alejandro was her friend, she couldn’t blame him for something that was beyond his control. At that moment there was nothing else to do, just return to Colombia. And, once again, wait.

Back in Colombia, with all the frustration and all the mental exhaustion that the trip had caused them, even since they began planning it, the witnesses had the same concerns, the same anguish, but they didn’t talk about it. Why was delivery of that legacy postponed so long? How long were they going to hold out? And if they went back a second time and again were told no, what would they have to do next? What if Alejandro definitely failed to meet the requirements and they didn’t give him the money?

[Kelly]: That’s when my ordeal began, because I was no longer sleeping. A feeling that things were not right. I didn’t even dare tell my husband what I was feeling. He didn’t dare tell me what he was feeling, either. So I think we were both suffering in silence.

[David]: Not only because of the constant fear of being monitored, but perhaps also because if they talked about it, they could pass the fear on to the other.

[Andrés]: I had already gotten my family into tremendous trouble. I was even more worried because now Kelly was out of work, so the whole burden of the home was going to fall on me. So I was… I was worried.

[David]: Those two weeks passed and the hearings were not confirmed. Then a month passed, and nothing. Iñaki, who had given the instruction to create a chat with all the witnesses to facilitate communication, told them it had been postponed to June. But Alejandro’s fires did not stop. One day, in mid-February, two of his fellow-students confronted him at the university, in front of a lot of people. They yelled at him, saying he was a liar, a swindler. Alejandro called several of the witnesses to come to the school because he was about to get hit. Even though the incident was over before they got to help him, there was a strange feeling that things could get complicated.

And indeed, the scandal did not stop there. As Alejandro later told Kelly, there was a rumor among the professors and students: that she and Andrés had helped him scam several people.

[Kelly]: I had worked at the university for 14 years, I had given the best of myself as a human being, and to think there could be such rumors around my name… it hurt. Wow, it hurt absurdly, it hurt a lot. 

[David]: So Kelly and Andrés sought out a criminal lawyer friend. They wanted to help Alejandro bring a suit for libel and slander against the people who raised a scandal at the university. They met at their house to recount the whole situation. This is the lawyer, Elkin Centeno:

[Elkin Centeno]: But then I asked them and said, “Well, the truth is that this seems very strange to me.”

[David]: The story of the legacy, of the so-called duke, of the trips to Spain, of the group of witnesses… Of the amount of money they had lent him.

[Elkin]: Then Mr. Vasco and Mrs. Kelly motioned for me to be quiet, to be silent. And that seemed even stranger to me. Then we left the apartment, to the common area of the stairs. 

[David]: Before going out, they left their cellphones inside. Once they were sure, they told him that they also had a lot of suspicions about things not going well, but that they were still afraid of being monitored and that’s why they took so many precautions.

[Elkin]: So I told them, “Look, the fact is I don’t believe there is a certain intelligence agency that does those wiretaps. It really is an expensive thing to do surveillance of someone. In order for calls to be intercepted, there must be an authorization from a judge.”

[David]: Kelly and Andrés were unaware of the details of how the Prosecutor’s Office works, but Elkin knows them well. He was sure that with so many prosecutions they have, with so many criminals and criminal organizations to monitor, the last thing they are going to worry about is a group of people who are waiting for a supposed legacy in Spain. 

But how did they find out about Andrés’s reaction when he received Iñaki’s mail while in Europe? Thinking about it, the answer was easy: Alejandro and Olga were sure that charging them for that kind of thing would upset them. And after so many months building a friendship, they knew perfectly well that Andrés reacted that way when it came to money matters. They simply bet that that would happen, and it did. 

What Elkin was suspecting was that Alejandro was the real problem.

[Elkin]: When I told them that that was probably a lie and that there was no inheritance, their faces immediately looked panicked.

And I told them that what they had to do was start doubting, because basically there was so much trust and affection that they were very biased, so to speak. It is as if there was a kind of emotional kidnapping.

[David]: They couldn’t believe it… or rather, they didn’t want to believe it.

[Kelly]: “This can’t be true, this can’t be true…” I breathed… My world fell apart because I believed in that guy, I believed in his mother. And we let him into our family. It hit me very hard emotionally. It was a very heavy blow.

[David]: Discovering a lie is always painful. Realizing that everything we took as true is actually false makes you angry. That it comes from someone we love, someone we trust, makes you sad. But also, looking back and seeing that the signs were so obvious, that we were that naive, it’s embarrassing. 

[Andrés]:  More than angry, I felt like the dumbest man in the world. I felt a lot of guilt, especially for having brought my family into this whole thing: my little sister, my dad’s wife, Kelly’s dad, Kelly’s aunt. That was a… a very difficult day for us. That day, I could hardly sleep.

[Kelly]: At night, I felt as if someone was sitting on my chest. I could not touch that subject without crying. I didn’t feel like eating.

[David]: Elkin suggested that they investigate, that they start trying to confirm each of the things that Olga and Alejandro had told them during all that time. They agreed to meet in a month to see what they could find and decide what the next step would be.

Kelly and Andrés weren’t the only ones realizing the truth. María Angélica had also began to be suspicious of Iñaki, and when he sent an ultrasound picture of his pregnant wife to the chat, she took the opportunity to find out more. She looked at the doctor’s information that appeared there, contacted him, and realized that he lived in Mexico, and he confirmed that he had never had a patient in Spain. María Angélica told Andrés about her suspicion that Iñaki was a fictitious character.

[Andrés]: And I opened up and said, “Not only do I think that this guy is fictitious, but we are thinking that everything is a lie.”

[María Angélica]: Everything came crashing down. No, it’s just… no, look, I hadn’t even had lunch, and I lost my appetite, lost everything. 

[David]: And that was not all they had confirmed. Two days after speaking with the lawyer, the so-called Iñaki asked Kelly to conduct individual interviews with the witnesses as a kind of rehearsal for the alleged interrogations in court. Kelly took advantage of that to find out more.

She made appointments with them in the office and spoke to each one privately. At first, no one expressed doubts about the process or thought that it was all a lie. Only one of them said something that caught her attention: he had lent Alejandro a lot of money a few months earlier, according to him, to pay some debts. Kelly asked for more details.

[Kelly]: “Shall I tell you the amounts I deposited to him?” And he began telling me about it, and they were the amounts that were deposited to us when we were in Madrid. And the date, the day, everything that was deposited to us.

[David]: When part of the legacy had supposedly been released to him after the fight in Berlin.

Kelly said nothing to the witness at the time.

[Kelly]: I finished the conversation with him, I sat for a second at my desk, and I couldn’t stand it, so I went to the bathroom and started taking deep breaths.

[David]: Then she went out, approached Andrés and whispered in his ear that they had been scammed. Later, at home, she told him everything. This looked to be much bigger than they had imagined. Who knows how long Alejandro and Olga had been scamming people out of money. They were probably always looking for more to fill the gaps that were left and pay for that luxury lifestyle of theirs.

Since they were no longer afraid of monitoring, they started sending emails and making calls. This one was made to the Economic Administrative Court of Madrid. They decided to record it to have proof of what they already knew was a hoax.

(CALL SOUNDBITE)

[Kelly]: Hello.

[Official]: Yes, what can I do for you?

[Kelly]: Look: what happens is that we are very concerned about a document that is arriving at our firm.

[David]: Kelly tried to explain to the court official about the summons they had received directly from them for the estate process.

(CALL SOUNDBITE)

[Kelly]: And it says: final appearance…

[Official]: No.

[Kelly]: Succession proces …

[Official]: Those data are not ours.

[Kelly]: Yes.

[Official]: Mm, this is looking very strange, very strange. So, forgive me, but we don’t usually ask for that: to appear here in person?

[David]: The official asked her who signed those documents. Kelly read her some names that appeared there.

(CALL SOUNDBITE)

[Official]: The people who sign whatever it is you received, we do not have any people here with those names.

[David]: Then Kelly then asked her about the only person from the court she had communicated with:

(CALL SOUNDBITE)

[Kelly]: And is there no one named Iñaki Cortez y Valenzuela either?

[Official]: No… no.

[David]: At the end, Kelly asked one last question: 

(CALL SOUNDBITE)

[Kelly]: Let me ask you one more thing: do you handle successions and inheritances?

[David]: The official’s response was a resounding No.

They also wrote to the agency that manages titles of nobility in Spain. The Duchy of Cardona has actually existed for six centuries and has been inherited by the descendants of the same family. The current Duchess of Cardona is Casilda Guerrero-Burgos y Fernández de Córdoba. When she dies, her title will be inherited by her son and then by her grandchildren, but nowhere in that genealogy do the names of Alejandro, Olga or grandfather Venancio appear.

With their answer, the agency also made another thing clear to them, and I quote here: “The people you refer to have no right to the title of Duke of Cardona. The fact that they are called Cardona has nothing to do with the title.”

[Kelly]: I imagine them making up lies every night. “And so today let’s write that email as if it were Iñaki saying this, today let’s do this and that and the other,” and I imagine them laughing: “Wow, today they fell for this…” I mean, it seems so sad that they reached that point. I don’t know whether they started that story and it grew, but they decided to continue it.

[David]: It was time to share this information with the rest of the witnesses. Little by little, they told them what they were discovering, and then they realized that Alejandro and Olga had been badmouthing them to each other, maybe as a strategy to divide them so they wouldn’t share their concerns.

At that point, they all decided that they were going to pretend in front of Alejandro and Olga until they had a clearer plan. 

[María Angélica]: Because if we confronted them just like that, without a clear plan, first they would deny it, because you know they are compulsive liars. And second, they could escape right then and there.

[David]: Kelly found it very difficult to pretend that she didn’t know anything.

[Kelly]: What I am going to say is going to sound very bad, it is not typical of my vocabulary, but the first time I came across Olga in the office,  for example, she went to the office and I knew the truth by then, and she said, “Hello, my doll, my princess,” because that’s how she treated me: “Hello, my princess, how are you?” and she hugged me, and I felt disgust, total and utter disgust.

[David]: She couldn’t do anything because she had to hide it, so she stayed still waiting for Olga to release her. The others also found it difficult to hide their annoyance and began to demand from Alejandro what he owed them. They wanted reassurance, but above all, their money, and as soon as possible.

That made Alejandro and Olga desperate, and probably set off alarm bells, because they started asking Kelly over and over again whether something was wrong.  One night, the so-called Iñaki told Kelly that Olga was very angry about the situation, that she needed them to tell her once and for all what was happening and why they were demanding money from Alejandro that way. He added that Olga was going to her house at that moment – ​​and I quote here – “like Putin against Ukraine” and that they did not know what she was capable of. Kelly and Andrés turned off all the lights and pretended not being home. Olga, desperate, knocked on the door, and insisted on the doorman to call them. After a while, she got tired and left.

Andrés recorded a call he had with her a few days later. These are extracts of what Olga said to him:

[Olga]: Andrés, what he needs is for you to really support him. But everyone, everyone is against him. And I don’t know who, who unleashed such a bomb of having everyone demand money from him, because everyone calls him morning, noon and night.”

“He owes that money, and he promised them even more than that money, and he is going to keep his word. But for him to comply, he needs support and help from all of you, so he can find a way to pay all his debts and be clear so that in Spain they stop bothering him.”

“They all want him to pay them. Fine. Why don’t they all get together? They can support him, they serve as guarantors, and it’s not going to go badly for anyone, it won’t go badly for anyone.” 

“Don’t turn your back on Alejandro. I know that it is a very difficult position, Andrés, but I know that you are exceptionally able and very intelligent. Get a certificate from a company saying he earns a certain amount. That absolutely does not affect any company. As lawyers, you can perfectly well certify that he earns so much and that won’t cause you any problems.” 

[David]: Alejandro also asked them the same in a voice memo.

[Alejandro]: I need some documents, and everyone can help us by writing some letters as if I worked as a freelancer and with a good salary that can be cash. 

[David]: And they told him that they were clearly not going to do it. Lying to a financial institution is a crime.

Alejandro ended up changing his strategy somewhat, and started to send them voice messages justifying himself.

[Alejandro]: I totally understand you. I have done everything that is in my power, but I cannot do anything else. I mean, really, what do you want me to do? Tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. But I don’t have any other way to pay back right now, no way.

[David]: As a last measure, the witnesses planned to confront them all together. Andrés talked to a friend who had been scammed some time back, and he offered to pretend that he was going to lend Alejandro more money. They wanted to set him up.

So Andrés talked to him and mentioned that his friend had money and didn’t know where to invest it.

[Andrés]: And then Alejo took the bait and said, “Hey, and why don’t you tell him to lend me that money?”

[David]: Andrés pretended to make the arrangements and they held a meeting at the friend’s house to deliver the money. It was all planned. The idea was that when they arrived, the witnesses would be there them to confront Alejandro and Olga with the evidence.

[Andrés]: And unfortunately, I received a call the day before, on a Friday, at noon, from Alejandro. And he says, “Andrés, I know what you are doing. Keep in mind that I am at the airport, I am leaving the country. Do whatever you want.” And he slammed down the phone on me. That was the last time I spoke to Alejandro.

[David]: They don’t know how he found out; someone who knew about the plan must have leaked the information to him. Anyway, he disappeared with his mother. They stopped using their numbers, deleted their social media and emails, including Iñaki’s. Alejandro did not go back to school, they never returned to the shops and restaurants that they liked so much… No one has seen them again.

I have also searched for them everywhere, we even tried to talk to their family, but no results. 

When they met again with Elkin, the lawyer, and showed him all the evidence they had collected, the crime was clear: 

[Elkin]: What really happened here was a scam, and to be a scam some criteria need to be met. Well, this guy got fake documents, created a fake life and requested some money loans that he was never going to pay back.

[David]: This can carry a sentence of up to 12 years in prison, or even more depending on the number of people deceived and the economic benefit the scammer has received.

The next step was to report them formally to the Prosecutor’s Office.

In total there are 18 victims of Alejandro and Olga, who ended up affected at different levels, not just material. As for money, eight of those victims gave them more than 300,000 dollars. That does not take into account what Alejandro also owes to several banks and probably what, together with his mother, they may have taken from other victims who have not yet sued.

In an attempt to recover some of that money, they filed a lawsuit to demand payment of those promissory notes they had once made him sign. In the investigation for legal proceedings, they verified that Alejandro and Olga’s are their real identities, but discovered that there is only one house in the name of Olga’s father. The problem is that it has several mortgages on it.

When we closed this story, almost a year had passed since the last time they spoke with Alejandro. Kelly works giving legal advice in private law and Andrés continues with his firm. All this time, they have been paying back each of the people in their family who was persuaded to lend him money.

That has helped them deal with the trauma to some extent, but there are still things remaining. One thing in particular still affects Andrés, and it is that apparently many people around him knew that they were being scammed before they realized it.

[Andrés]: And let’s say that’s where I felt most lonely. Because then everyone did know it, everyone did get it, but nobody said anything and I am the idiot. “And we all knew that was going to happen to you.”

[David]: Kelly also feels something similar. She even reproached a couple of people close to her who said the same thing, and they replied that she seemed so close to Alejandro that they thought she wouldn’t believe them. They may be right—that relationship she had with him and his mother is what hurts her the most about all of this.

[Kelly]: It was feeling that you gave so much to a couple of people and knowing that each and every thing from the moment they greeted you and approached you was a lie. So when I am asked whether I actually came to love them… so much that the wound is mainly emotional.

[David]: The other witnesses have had their own ways to cope with this situation. Alejandro really earned their love and trust at first and then deluded them with so many lies. And then he ended up letting them down. Some do not want their case to be known. They just prefer to move on. María Angélica, for her part, still has the same feeling as when she found out about everything.

[María Angélica]: To this day I am still angry, and especially because of the money; just look how it all ended. I would like to find him. I mean, I’m normally very calm, but my reaction… wow! I would love to see it. I would love to see that side of me if I ever run into him at some point.

[David]: Regarding the executive lawsuit, the procedures to make Alejandro return the money continue. So far, they have not been able to sue Olga because all the documents were signed by Alejandro. And the process in the Prosecutor’s Office… well, it still hasn’t moved forward. Kelly suspected from the beginning that it was going to be like this, that it was going to be slow.

[Kelly]: It’s only logical to think that a person should pay for their crime, but we live in Colombia. We know how things can go and how sometimes true justice can be so far away.

[David]: Although they have hope, at times they think that they will not reach legal solutions and that they will not recover the money. But recently, Andrés read something that left him thinking. 

[Andrés]: There was a very cool article at the time, about a guy who was also scammed by a friend. And I kept this phrase in mind: it said, “Vampires are fought with garlic and wooden stakes. Scammers, by exposing them.”

[David]: And that’s why they told us their story, so that no one else would ever believe the duke of Medellín.

[Daniel]: Apparently, Alejandro and Olga also posed as a Colombian prosecutor to validate their scam. But in that case, that person was real. When they found out the truth, Kelly alerted the prosecutor, who decided to sue the scammers for impersonation. So far, that process has not advanced either. 

Judicial authorities in Medellín reported in 2022 that over four years more than 25,000 victims of fraud had been reported in that city alone. The most recurring complaints are about job offers, purchases, commercial agreements, money loans and the use of false profiles on social media.

David Trujillo is a senior producer at Radio Ambulante and lives in Bogotá. This story was edited by Luis Fernando Vargas, Camila Segura and me. The fact-checking was done by Bruno Scelza. The sound design is Andrés Azpiri with music by Rémy Lozano and Andrés.

The rest of the Radio Ambulante team includes Paola Alean, Nicolás Alonso, Lisette Arévalo, Pablo Argüelles, Aneris Casassus, Diego Corzo, Emilia Erbetta, Camilo Jiménez Santofimio, Selene Mazón, Juan David Naranjo, Ana Pais, Laura Rojas Aponte, Melisa Rabanales, Natalia Sánchez Loayza, Barbara Sawhill, and Elsa Liliana Ulloa.

Carolina Guerrero is the CEO. 

Radio Ambulante is a podcast by Radio Ambulante Estudios, produced and mixed on the Hindenburg PRO program. 

Radio Ambulante tells the stories of Latin America. I’m Daniel Alarcón. Thanks for listening.