Former rector goes fugitive after Colombia's army says 'gang leader' stole university funds
by Adriaan Alsema November 23, 2018
Former rector Ramses Vargas (R) and former Education Minister Yaneth Giha. (Image: Zona Cero)
The former rector of the Autonomous University in Colombia’s northern port city Barranquilla went in hiding after the military said he was a “gang leader” who robbed around $5 million from the university.
Former rector Ramses Vargas allegedly was the leader of a group of 10 people dedicated to embezzling funds from the university that has been plagued by corruption for more than a decade.
Prosecutors and members of the military arrested nine university executives and employees on Wednesday after a six-month investigation into the alleged mass embezzlement.
. . .
Vargas became the rector of the university in 2013 after the arrest of his predecessor, Silvia Gette, a former stripper who inherited the academic institution after the death of her husband and granted former President Alvaro Uribe one of his honorary degrees.
More:
https://colombiareports.com/former-rector-goes-fugitive-after-colombias-army-says-gang-leader-stole-university-funds/
~ ~ ~
Google translated from Colombian newspaper, Semana:
SPECIAL REPORT | 9/28/2013 1:00:00 AM
Silvia Gette, the dean of evil
The macabre story of how this woman who just 25 years ago was in misery.
Silvia Gette managed to sound in the deck of candidates for the Governorate of the Atlantic for the elections of 2011. She herself confirmed her interest to get into politics in an interview in April of that year: "It is true, I would make many changes and I have I really want to do things around the city. "
By then, Gette was at his best. At age 60, and as rector of the Autonomous University of the Caribbean (UAC) felt that he had the world at his feet. But very soon he had to give in to his aspiration.
In September of that same year, 2011, she began to uncover her pandora's box: four of the most feared paramilitaries reported her having paid 150 million pesos in 2003 for killing Fernando Cepeda, the husband of her stepdaughter (María Paulina Ceballos). Cepeda was one of the calls to inherit the rector of the UAC when the rector Mario Ceballos, husband of Gette, died.
The news had no major impact. It was recorded in a brief consolidated note on the inside pages of a local newspaper. It was not a normal deployment, if one takes into account that at the time, she was already the rector of a prestigious university with 15,000 students. But the reason is simple: in Barranquilla, at least until that moment, the name of Silvia Gette instilled terror.
More:
https://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/silvia-gette-la-decana-del-mal/359207-3