Colombian prosecutors have seized the offices of Anglo-French oil and gas firm Perenco, accusing it of paying paramilitaries, a charge the company denied Wednesday.
Between 1997 and 2005, the firm was accused of paying the now-defunct United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia.
Known by its Spanish acronym, the AUC operated bloody anti-guerilla death squads for about a decade, bringing death and terror to swaths of the Colombian countryside.
Ex-paramilitaries have testified that Perenco paid “money, fuel, food, and transportation in exchange for security services offered at crude oil extraction wells.”
The prosecutor’s office on Tuesday announced Perenco’s offices and assets — worth about $10 million — would be allocated to a victim reparations fund.
Perenco denied the allegations, and said in a statement Wednesday it had not been granted the “opportunity to exercise its right to defense.”
“We deny any historic relationships with illegal groups, and we strongly oppose any involvement in the payment of any type of reparations,” a company spokesperson said.
Perenco has 400 employees in Colombia and produces 14,000 barrels of oil per day.
