Guillermo Grosso Sandoval Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison For Corruption In Colombian Health Care

Guillermo Grosso Sandoval, the former head of a private Health Promoting Entity (EPS) company in Colombia, was found guilty of corruption and bribery after he had tried to influence and bribe a government official to give him and his allies in the health industry favorable contracts.

Grosso, who specialized in health management and headed the now-defunct Cafesalud EPS, was convicted on Tuesday, March 21 for corruption charges related to the health industry, including the conspiracy to commit a crime and bribery, when he and his partners attempted to offer at least three different bribes to the former delegate superintendent for Institutional Supervision at the National Health Superintendency, Eva Katherine Carrascal.

Grosso and his partners Jhon Alexánder Colmenares Russi and Javier Peña Ramírez offered bribes worth millions to Carrascal in exchange for “intervening to expedite the payment of medical bills owed by Cafesalud EPS to the Medical Corporation,” the recognition of Ecoopsos EPS, and the revocation of some permits from other EPS providers to benefit Grosso and his partners.

“You cannot be paying her, you cannot be promising gifts to an official for conduct that has to do with his work. It is there where the concert to commit a crime is configured,” the judge from the 25th Criminal Court of Knowledge of Bogotá said.

Another investigation of him pointed out that Grosso had a deal with other EPS companies that allowed him to get a 10% cut for every contract awarded related to patient care, the Attorney General’s Office said.

“Between February 2015 and March 2016, Grosso Sandoval would have agreed with the other defendants that he would receive 10% of each contract that was assigned to them for the comprehensive care of cancer patients in Bogotá, and municipalities of Boyacá, Santander and Cundinamarca,” they said.

Carrascal was already convicted and sentenced in 2021 for her crimes, giving her six years and eight months for her participation in the health care crime network. Grosso’s sentence is recommended to be six years and five months by the district judge, but his lawyers have attempted to argue to allow for house arrest due to him having served over four years in prison already.

Grosso’s lawyer Óscar Eduardo Gómez has also argued that the timing of the case has violated his client’s right of due process, claiming that because of it, his client has been forced to spend four years in prison while waiting for the verdict of his crimes.

“This practice violates due process and the presumption of innocence of Mr. Grosso, because presuming himself innocent and without the Prosecutor’s Office having been able to prove otherwise, he has been unjustly deprived of his liberty for nearly 4 years,” Gómez said.