False Witnesses

This is a campaign launched by the American lawyer Terry Collingsworth against the Drummond Company to obtain millions of dollars in benefits based on false accusations that Drummond and certain of its directors financed paramilitary groups in Cesar.

This story was proven, with evidence, before juries and judges in the United States who dismissed all claims against Drummond and ruled that neither Drummond nor its executives were responsible for the allegations made by Collingsworth. It was demonstrated that his claims lacked any basis or evidence linking him to the allegations. Evidence of this can be found in this section of this website.

Countless documents, including deposit slips, transfer confirmations, and emails, are in the hands of national justice and international courts, reflecting significant payments made by lawyer Collingsworth and his team, which also includes Colombian lawyers such as Iván Otero, to former paramilitaries who have testified against Drummond, even though this contradicts their original statements in the proceedings.

False Witnesses Cartel

It has been proven that Collingsworth and his legal team paid approximately $40,000 to the family of Jairo de Jesús Charris (a former paramilitary member sentenced to 30 years in prison for homicide), who testified against the company's executives.

Charris has been represented by the Colombian lawyer Otero who is part of Collingsworth's network to hire and pay witnesses who, as a result, have given false testimony against Drummond and its executives.

The Colombian lawyer had previously represented some of the former paramilitaries who would later testify against Drummond, and entered into an agreement with Collingsworth in January 2009 whereby he was promised a 25% share of the legal fees resulting from the new cases litigated against Drummond and its executives.

Just as happened with Charris, Jaime Blanco Maya, a former food contractor for Drummond, had given statements to the Prosecutor's Office, stating that neither Drummond nor its executives had any relationship with paramilitary groups.

However, it has been proven that Blanco received payments of more than $110,000 after being convicted of the murder of union leaders, after which he changed his testimony to implicate Drummond and its executives in alleged alliances with paramilitary groups.

In fact, Blanco refused to sign a statement changing his story until he had received the money, as proven in emails, which can be read here.

These and other pieces of evidence have been handed over to several prosecutors, to the JEP, and to the Attorney General's Office to demonstrate the falsity of the claims made against Drummond and its executives.

Judicial Processes in the United States

In 2015, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama applied the crime-fraud exception in favor of Drummond Company, to lift the confidentiality, among others, of communications between the American lawyer, his team and the witnesses.

In the proceedings of a defamation lawsuit filed by Drummond in 2011 against Terrence Collingsworth and his law firm, Conrad & Scherer, the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama issued the following opinion:

"The court has no doubt that there is (at least) probable cause to believe that [attorney Terrence Collingsworth], while carrying out lawsuits on behalf of his firm, engaged in witness tampering and gave false testimony."

United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama

Likewise, the Court concluded that there was probable cause to believe that Collingsworth had committed fraud by concealing payments to witnesses against Drummond:

"It is difficult to imagine a set of facts that could more clearly establish the first point of the case prima facie for breach of privilege. Collingsworth repeatedly made false representations in briefs, depositions, correspondence, and in court."

United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama

The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Drummond Company and declined the plaintiffs' request in Balcero v. Drummond to review the case, reaffirming the judgment given by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, confirming the dismissal of the case by the Court on July 25, 2013, on the grounds that the plaintiffs relied on inadmissible rumors to support their claims and that these are not viable.

The Balcero case lawsuit was filed in May 2009 and was based on allegations that Drummond Ltd. and two of its executives had been involved in human rights abuses in Colombia. The Court's original ruling stated that the record "demonstrated a lack of evidence to support the Plaintiff's case."

Jaime Blanco Maya

After being sentenced to 38 years in prison for the murder of union leaders, Blanco's new theory is that Drummond increased payments to its former supplier to obtain additional funds that would then be channeled through Blanco to illegal groups.

This theory contradicts his previous statements regarding payments received from Collingsworth. Furthermore, a technical report prepared by Kroll revealed that Drummond's contract with ISA did not involve any cost overruns or inflated prices.

This is the theory that Blanco Maya presented to the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), which admitted him in 2019 and subsequently released him. A reasonable hypothesis is that the paramilitaries' statements could have stemmed not only from the payments they received, but also from seeking reduced sentences in other jurisdictions, as indeed happened.

PAX Report

It has been shown that Collingsworth collaborated by providing information and documents to the NGO PAX, which were used by PAX as the main source for the preparation of the report "The Dark Side of Coal".

Drummond, in turn, informed PAX about the falsity of the arguments and presented hundreds of evidentiary documents that refuted the witnesses on which the report was based, which had no effect.

Another relevant actor in this story is Llanos Oil Exploration, Ltd., a Colombian oil exploration company run by the van Bilderbeek brothers from the Netherlands, which signed an oil contract with Ecopetrol S.A. in 2002, which was terminated in 2003 due to Llanos Oil's non-compliance.

Hendrik van Bilderbeek faced money laundering charges and imprisonment in 2004. Llanos Oil filed a lawsuit alleging a conspiracy between Ecopetrol, the Colombian government, and Drummond to "steal" its oil rights. The lawsuit was dismissed six months after it was filed. A witness, Javier Ernesto Ochoa Quiñonez, known as "El Mecánico" (The Mechanic), alleged that Van Bilderbeek offered money for false testimony against Drummond.

PAX has distorted the facts without any effort to investigate the truth about Drummond in Colombia or the coal industry in the country. Despite the detailed information provided by Drummond to PAX employees, the organization chose to ignore it and base its report on the statements of paramilitaries convicted of massacres, whose claims have been inconsistent.

A prime example is the statement of alias "El Tigre," a convicted paramilitary member, who initially made no mention of Drummond in his numerous testimonies, sworn statements, and voluntary statements. However, PAX chose to use an unsworn version in which he referred to the company, omitting the sworn statements that exonerated Drummond.

PAX's blind trust in the "statements" of people linked to the lawyers representing victims who received payments during the process raises doubts about the integrity of the report.

It is also important to highlight that the correspondence between the "declarants" and the lawyers representing the victims reveals plans to deliver large sums of cash to these "witnesses," an ethically questionable practice by the lawyers that undermines the witnesses' credibility. These actions compromise the veracity of the PAX report and call into question the validity of its conclusions regarding Drummond in Colombia.