DIAN research splashes on Pastor Maria Luisa Piraquive

Since 2010, the Attorney General's Office has been conducting an investigation against the church led by María Luisa Piraquive, for alleged money laundering. This investigation has not led to the issuance of an order to open a formal investigation.

The church is a fundamental stronghold of the MIRA political movement, which currently has 3 senators and one representative serving in the legislative period that is about to end, in fact, they supported the candidacy of President Iván Duque and launched a candidate for the presidential consultations on March 13, for the Coalition Team for Colombia, Aydeé Lizarazo.

But the Piraquive family faces complaints of irregularities that allegedly point to money laundering linked to drug trafficking. This is why Maria Luisa faced the Directorate of National Taxes and Customs, DIAN, in the Administrative Court of Cundinamarca.

Since 2015, “the shepherdess” confronted the management because they did not respond to a right of petition requesting information about a complaint against her. According to Caracol Radio, “DIAN told the pastor that this information was confidential because they had to protect the identity of the complainant. This entity also assured that they had to contrast and investigate the information collected before the respondent was aware of the action.”

According to the Time Investigative Unit, Óscar Jair Bedoya Piraquive, was investigated by the Prosecutor's Office for the alleged irregular handling of tithes and money laundering. They point out that Priscila Angula, a former member of the church, was interviewed by the judicial body in the first instance for information she had about an alleged irregular capital increase. Later, she was summoned to declare, noting that dollars were being deposited in cash through the Colombian border with Ecuador.

All these ongoing investigations, which point to the Piraquive family, have as their visible head María Luisa, who, according to DIAN, is part of the Large Taxpayers group, and it was that section of the entity that investigated the income reported by the pastor in 2012.

Caracol Radio explains that there are basically two investigations that are ongoing, one for tax evasion and the other for omission of assets. For DIAN, María Luisa Piraquive was investigated and subject to supervision and eventual liquidation and sanction.

The respondent won the appeal for insistence, which is a tool that citizens put forward when a public authority claims that it cannot deliver X or Y information because it has reservations. The Administrative Court of Cundinamarca agreed with him and ordered DIAN to give him the information that the pastor was requesting.

The case that has been going on for more than a decade, where the Piraquive family is being investigated, has had to be handled “with tweezers” by the political arms that shelter the leaders of the Ministerial Church of God of Jesus Christ International.

In fact, Alexandra Moreno Piraquive, co-founder of the MIRA Political Movement and currently working at the Colombian consulate in New York, filed an accusation to the Police, that they would be illegally intercepting their communications. This was annexed in a letter to then-President Juan Manuel Santos, while she was acting as plenipotentiary minister in New York.

In the statement, she requested that she investigate alleged follow-ups to which she and other party members were victims. The argument she put in the letter was that she was being intercepted for not supporting the promotion of one senior officer and questioning that of another.

This was presented while investigations into irregular tithe management of tithes were being carried out.

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