Abelardo de la Espriella, the winner of the Colombian elections held this Sunday, admits to being a sybarite.

A dandy with a Caribbean accent who likes good food, who spends time in Florence and Miami, sells Tuscan wines and Italian silk ties, wears luxury watches and drives extravagantly powered cars.

"I know him and he does not live modestly; he has a lifestyle that requires strong resources," describes journalist Ángel Becassino, who investigated the biography of the winner of the Colombian elections, according to the pre-count and in the absence of official scrutiny.

The fortune of De la Espriella, a hard-line conservative businessman aligned with the rights of Donald Trump, Nayib Bukele and Javier Milei in America, was a central topic of his campaign.

This lawyer sells himself as a successful businessman who financed his presidential career with his earnings and credits.

He relied on that to defend his status as an 'outsider', which according to him will allow him to govern independently of the country's traditional powers.

But his income is also questioned.

Critics and political rivals debate De la Espriella's links with clients linked to paramilitarism and corruption cases.

US Democratic congressmen and investigations by media outlets such as La Silla Vacía also cast doubt on the transparency of their business activities.

The origin of his fortune attracts attention after winning the second round against Iván Cepeda, who sought to continue the progressive path of the current president, Gustavo Petro.

A business kid

Whoever is emerging as president for the next four years has three nationalities: Colombian, American and Italian.

He was born in Bogotá, but grew up in Montería, the capital of the department of Córdoba in the Caribbean region of Colombia.

“He comes from a family of a certain level, from a slightly upper middle class, from a world with resources with some farms,” says Becassino.

Since he was little, De la Espriella showed a pulse for the business.

He rented his video game console to other children and sold groceries in the neighborhood, he said.

Later, when he moved to study law at the Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá, he expanded his markets.

Gerardo Reyes, a Colombian journalist who has also investigated part of De la Espriella's life, says that "he did business there; selling clothes, whiskey and emeralds in the US."

Those were the dawn of a career in which he ended up founding dozens of companies, including a questioned, media-friendly and prolific law firm that catapulted his income and his personal brand.

paramilitary lawyer

After venturing as a musical representative, “of some vallenato singer,” as Becassino says, De la Espriella found the goose that laid the golden eggs at the beginning of 2000.

The government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez was finalizing the so-called Santa Fe de Ralito Agreement, a demobilization and peace process for the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.

The AUC was a far-right paramilitary group created in the late 1990s to combat leftist guerrillas and protect the interests of local businessmen and farmers.

One of the epicenters of the group was the department of Córdoba.

Crimes against humanity, massacres and links to drug trafficking are attributed to the AUC.

De la Espriella “arrives into the paramilitary world of an anthropologist from Montería who taught geopolitics, good manners and history to Carlos Castaño, the leader of the AUC,” says Reyes.

Here you find what many business sharks consider optimal clients: individuals with purchasing power and urgent needs.

In this case, that of imprisoned individuals, accused of serious crimes and willing to pay anything to get out of the hole.

"De la Espriella himself described this condition to me as ideal for a lawyer. This is how he built his fortune," says Becassino.

Fame, high fees and accusations

Since then the businessman has gained an increasingly recognized name, a brand.

Entertainment personalities, wealthy businessmen, high-profile politicians, victims of gender violence and environmental disasters, and individuals involved in scandalous corruption attended his services.

One of them was David Murcia Guzmán, founder of the DMG firm, intervened in 2008 by the State after a massive and illegal collection of money.

In a recent interview with Colombian journalist Daniel Coronell, Murcia Guzmán reproached the lawyer for allegedly appropriating $5,000 million pesos (US$1.4 million) and asking for another $760 million (US$217,000) to supposedly bribe congressmen.

De la Espriella denounced Murcia Guzmán, who is serving a 30-year prison sentence, for insult and aggravated slander.

He was also a representative of Álex Saab, a Colombian-Venezuelan businessman, alleged front man of Nicolás Maduro, from whom he separated in 2019.

Saab was extradited in May from Venezuela to the US to face criminal charges.

Becassino points out that for the services of this type of client, De la Espriella has charged very high fees, but that the lawyer has also taken on cases with wide repercussions that were more profitable for his brand than for his pocket.

“I have collected up to two and three million dollars, depending on the case,” said De la Espriella in an interview published on his website, De la Espriella Style.

He has been criticized by political rivals, media and analysts for the origins of his clients and his relationship with them.

His team frames the clientele within the usual practice of a criminal lawyer and the right to legitimate defense.

Business Collection

Through the legal profession, Becassino says that De la Espriella invested and created his collection of companies.

One of them is his firm, De la Espriella Lawyers, the jewel in the crown that the lawyer himself points out as his most important business.

It also sells food, drinks and clothing through De la Espriella Style.

With Dominio De la Espriella it produces and promotes wines and rums.

The lawyer even has a musical side. On his YouTube channel he has published videos reversing classics such as O sole mio, Volare or A mi corazón.

It is all part of that multifaceted, media, entrepreneurial and successful brand with which he presented himself to Colombia.

The Colombian media La Silla Vacía tracked his business assets.

As of December 2025, he says he has found 35 companies “between Colombia, Panama and the United States with which De la Espriella has a current or very recent relationship.”

Jineth Prieto, one of the journalists who signed the investigation, agrees that the law firm is De la Espriella's most profitable company and that it owns many properties, but that other firms that he presumes are making losses, accumulating debts and calling into question the lawyer's success story.

Between assets and debts, Prieto and his team estimated De la Espriella's fortune in Colombia at about 19 billion pesos (US$5.43 million).

"Those are the numbers of the companies we found. There may be more. With that wealth, De la Espriella would be among the 1% richest people in the US, but he would not be the candidate with the most money running for an election in Colombia," Prieto told BBC Mundo.

Rodolfo Hernández, Petro's deceased rival in 2022 who also presented himself as an outsider, reported assets equivalent to US$52 million in 2022, according to Prieto.

BBC Mundo was not able to independently compare the findings of La Silla Vacía, but to date the winner of the election has not denied its information.

La Silla Vacía sent a questionnaire to De la Espriella to find out his version of their investigations, which found that his narrative of success was not supported by financial statements and that, in addition, “several of his partners have or have had problems with the law.”

The campaign considered the questions “leading and biased” and refused to answer them.

On Wednesday, June 17, 11 US Democratic congressmen sent a letter in which they asked the Secretary of State, the Attorney General's Office and the Treasury Department to investigate the origin of the funds from De la Espriella's investments in the US.