In 2011, Rodolfo Palomino López was the third most important man in the National Police, he held the position of commander of the Citizen Security Directorate and was about to go from brigadier general to major general.
But while Palomino was emerging as the strongest candidate to become the successor of General León Riaño as director of the National Police, his brother Ramón Eduardo Palomino López began to walk again on the edge of the edge of criminality.
At that time, and according to official documents, his first victim, Elizabeth Gómez Ruiz began to live the worst of her nightmares. The 20th Civil Court of the Bogotá Circuit was close to ordering the auction of the property that she had acquired in 2000, after she divorced and liquidated her conjugal partnership.
Two years ago, in 2009 they initiated a mortgage enforcement process after he failed to cancel an obligation and the property was already seized, seized and with a judgment against. Desperate, she told Ariel Valencia about her situation, who introduced her to Humberto Mesú. He told her that he was an Army officer.
Mesú then introduced him to Ramón Eduardo Palomino, former rector of the Camilo Torres school and who displayed his best letter of introduction at that time, was General Rodolfo Palomino’s brother. Their extreme resemblance generated confidence.
The woman detailed the situation. He needed $ 200 million to pay his creditor and thus finish the process in court and sell the property. So Ramón Palomino appeared as a savior. He offered to lend him the value of the mortgage on the condition that the value of the loan be returned to him, plus a condition as soon as the property was sold, which at the time was valued at $ 968 million.
On February 4, 2011, Elizabeth Gómez signed deed 292 of Notary 39 of Bogotá in which she granted a special power of attorney to Ramón Palomino to sell the property on her behalf.
Ten days later, Gomez gave Palomino $ 50 million. Only a balance of $ 120 million would remain in their accounts to cover the entire mortgage loan. But in June of that same year, Gómez requested a certificate of tradition and freedom. There he realized that in entry number nine a sale had been included.
By deed 1714 of March 18, 2011 at the Ninth Notary Public of Bogotá, Ramón Palomino, with the power of attorney given to him by Elizabeth Gómez, sold the property to Alejandro Pacheco Ramírez.
In turn, Pacheco Ramírez mortgaged the property for $ 137 million, leaving the former conservative senator of Huila Josè Antonio Gómez Hermida as the mortgagee. This last maneuver was carried out on April 11, 2011, by deed 635 from Notary 34 of Bogotá.
Shocked by the annotations on the certificate of tradition and freedom of her property, Mrs. Gómez contacted Ramón Palomino López. There he got a new surprise. This time, General Palomino’s brother, who until then had presented himself as the messiah for Gomez’s problems, changed his attitude. Gone is kindness and good manners. In that call he was hostile, defiant, and even threatened Elizabeth Gómez.
The state of terror caused by the telephone communication with Ramón Palomino generated other problems for the woman, she could not even approach her property. In May 2012 the property was deeded to Diana Lesli Durán Esquivel and who also affected the property as a family home on July 6, 2012.
Since then Elizabeth Gómez began to live a true ordeal. She denounced pressure and intimidation at her work and even commented that she was the victim of strange calls and felt that she was being followed. An anxiety that he currently lives with.
In 2013, the 96th Prosecutor’s Office registered in the certificate the judicial prohibition to continue disposing of the property because the investigation process for aggravated fraud had begun.
After several years of investigation, only until May 2018, the Prosecutor’s Office presented an indictment for the crimes of procedural fraud, large-scale fraud and obtaining a false public document against Alejandro Pacheco Ramirez, who did not accept charges.
Now two years later he was captured and placed at the disposal of a guarantee control judge, Ramón Palomino, who did accept the charges. Along with two other people, he was prosecuted and must answer for conspiracy to commit a crime, procedural fraud, obtaining a false public document, aggravated fraud, qualified and aggravated theft and usurpation of real estate.
But Elizabeth Gómez is not the only victim of the so-called ‘Los Oportunistas’ gang led precisely by Ramón Palomino, brother of the former director of the Police, Rodolfo Palomino and the current commander of the Police in Cúcuta, José Luis Palomino. Also appearing in the case are Angélica María Gómez and several members of a family named Sánchez. Within the process, there are three recognized victims and two others sought to be recognized as such.
And it is that the judicial past of Ramón Palomino, 67 years of age, indicates that years ago he was deprived of his liberty for crimes associated with drug trafficking. The alleged irregular sale of a lot for $ 135 million in 2012 to a member of the same organization is also being investigated.
Added to this is another complaint against Palomino for the illegal appropriation of a home, to which he acceded by force while its legitimate owners moved to Huila to prevent the contagion of Covid-19.
It is the epilogue of a man, who, protected by the power of his two brothers, high police officers, had been imposing his own regime, but who today must remember that no one is above the law.
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