“I took 8,000 dollars and I came to Venezuela,” adds the suspect, Gabriel Carlos Luis Salinas Mendoza, of Venezuelan nationality, arrested in Caracas on Tuesday afternoon, according to Ceballos.
Colombian authorities had announced the capture on Wednesday.
There was “a request from Interpol, blue alert”, which obliges the authorities to inform other countries about the location of the individual, Ceballos said in an announcement to the press.
“This person is also being required by the Colombian prosecutor’s office” and “we were able to verify that this individual belongs to the international criminal structure in the case of this Paraguayan prosecutor”, killed in front of his pregnant wife on May 10, 2022 on the island of Barú, near Cartagena.
Related note: The sixth hitman of Pecci is now in prison, the obsession is the mastermind
Salinas is accused of driving the jet ski in which the gunman who killed the 45-year-old prosecutor was riding, specialized in organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering and terrorist financing.
Ceballos released a video in which the suspect, who has already served a sentence in Venezuela for kidnapping and homicidesupposedly acknowledges his part in the crime.
#NewsW | In a statement, the Minister of the Interior, Justice and Peace of Venezuela, Remigio Ceballos, showed the statements of Gabriel Salinas Mendoza, involved in the case of prosecutor Marcelo Pecci and arrested in Caracas on the night of December 20. pic.twitter.com/pun8YHNmH2
– W Radio Colombia (@WRadioColombia) December 22, 2022
“While in Medellín, at a motopiruetas event, I met Francisco Correa, alias ‘El Monín’, where he told me that a hit man had to be executed, I told him that if there was money, he said yes and told me He gives orders to look for two more people,” Salinas says in the video.
“In Cartagena, ‘Monín’ gives us the gun with which we were going to carry out the assassination,” follow. “‘El Guácala’ gets off, executes the prosecutor, gets on the motorcycle and we leave, where they were waiting for us (…) to go to Medellín by land.”
“I grabbed 8,000 dollars and I came to Venezuela”, indicates the detainee.
Also read: The fugitive of the Pecci crime is arrested in Venezuela
Ceballos pointed out that Salinas will be tried in Venezuela since the law “exhaustively prohibits the extradition of Venezuelans,” as anticipated by the Colombian police.
The investigation into the murder of Pecci has not yet found the masterminds of the crime. The United States offered a reward of 5 million dollars to those who provide information on those responsible.
The entrance ‘I got $8,000’ for Pecci’s murder, says captured Venezuelan suspect was first published on newspaper TODAY.
