LatinNews Daily - 12 March 2026

*Ricardo Roa, the president of Colombia’s state oil company Ecopetrol, has been charged with influence peddling. The attorney general’s office announced that Roa is accused of ordering a representative of a subsidiary of Ecopetrol to appoint a specific person to the Chuchupa Ballenas gas project in the north-eastern department of La Guajira in 2024. It added that “the possible illegal intervention… is related to his alleged interest in purchasing an apartment in the north of Bogotá, which was sold to him by the person who would benefit from the gas project, via an estate agent, for a below-market price with the possibility to pay in interest-free instalments”. A close ally of President Gustavo Petro, Roa has separately been accused of corruption relating to a solar power project and of campaign finance violations during Petro’s 2022 election campaign, which Roa directed.