The EL TIEMPO Investigative Unit revealed This weekend the multimillion-dollar fight that broke out between the heirs of Paisa businessman William Vélez – head of the fourth largest business conglomerate in the country – after his death, which occurred on May 19, 2025.
The juicy corporate dispute, which includes dozens of companies in seven countries – including the powerful Grupo Ethuss and Interaseo of Colombia – ended up coming to light after an investigation began. in the Prosecutor’s Office due to the status of the journalistic complaint made by EL TIEMPO, in October 2025, about an opaque business between Ecopetrol and one of the firms of the Vélez conglomerate.
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War of accusations
William Vélez, Colombian businessman who died on May 19, 2025. Photo:Fernando Ariza / CEET
In fact, the Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO revealed that the state oil company decided to pay close to 42 million dollars for the sale of the Termomorichal I and II generation plants, despite the fact that there were old legal concepts that indicated that the transfer of assets be done at “zero cost.”
Although executives of Ecopetrol justified the business – which passed through the board of directors* of the state company – the case began to be investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office and in the internal forensic audit.
In the midst of the investigations, they began to reach the prosecuting body, judges, to the Superintendence of Companies and even to an arbitration court evidence of the corporate fight that the maximum heirs of Vélez, his daughters Sandra María Vélez Mesa and Lina María Vélez Gaviria (with their children), are facing.
The dispute It is of such magnitude that, as informed sources confirmed to EL TIEMPO, the case has already reached the Constitutional Court, via review of a guardianship in which details of the visceral war for control of William Vélez’s emporium are revealed.
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‘Economic violence’
Businessman William Vélez and his daughter Lina Vélez. Photo:Private file
The action was initiated by Lina María Vélez Gaviria, fashion designer, and for her children, against her sister and several of the executives of her father’s conglomerate.
“The guardianship is presented to cease the structural economic violence exercised against Lina Vélez, in her capacity as a woman, successor in title and mother of three minor children, as subjects of special constitutional protection, due to the acts of economic and psychological violence exercised by Sandra María Vélez Mesa, Andrés Eduardo Alvarado González, Lina Patricia Vanegas, Martha Angélica Martínez Piraquive, Álvaro Panesso LinerosMónica Adriana Melo Piraquive, which affect the fundamental rights enshrined in articles 42, 44, 58, 29, 38 and 25″, reads the document that the Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO obtained for the first time.
On June 17, guardianship was denied in the second instance. Photo:THE TIME
And it is added that the people against whom the constitutional action was instituted, in their capacity as social administrators, “have exerted undue pressure, systematic exclusion and a pattern of abuse constituting, together, economic and psychological violence against women.”
In fact, it is ensured that the guardianship mechanism is used “to prevent irreparable damage from being consolidated on the fundamental rights of Lina Vélez and her minor children (…) who have been coordinated and abusively violated by the active and omissive actions of the defendants.”
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The response and the failures
Jaime Granados, lawyer of Lina Vélez Gaviria. Photo:Private file
There is even talk of “a coordinated plan to empty this egalitarian distribution of inheritance of its content, appropriating the operational control, political rights and economic flows of the business group created by William Vélez Sierra (RIP).”
The penalty killer Jaime Granados is the head of Lina Vélez Gaviria’s defense.
Although The attorneys of the parties have refrained from speaking about the case, alleging reservation, EL TIEMPO not only obtained the response of the guardianship but also the two rulings that deny the protection. Even so, the Constitutional Court was asked to select it for review, in the chamber of judges Jorge Ibáñez and Carlos Camargo.
Faced with the accusations, Sandra Vélez’s lawyers – at the head of the penalist Jaime Lombana and Néstor Camilo Martínez – not only dismissed the accusations.
Jaime Lombana, lawyer of Sandra Vélez Mesa. Photo:Fernando Ariza. EL TIEMPO Archive
Furthermore, they noted: “The plaintiff and her renowned lawyers ostensibly denature the subsidiary nature of the constitutional action, seeking to instrumentalize the guardianship judge to invade in a devalued manner powers and functions that by constitutional rule correspond exclusively to the Attorney General’s Office and the arbitration court, among others.“.
Sandra Vélez’s defense also emphasizes that, in her opinion, it is contradictory and strange, that “the renowned lawyers of Mrs. Lina Vélez and her powerful entourage, who initiated criminal actions plagued by false statements, lawsuits and recent Arbitration Courts”go to guardianship for the same facts.
The ruling in the first instance where they deny the protection filed by Lina Vélez. Photo:THE TIME
And it is added that they are looking for now “in a haphazard manner, to take refuge in a protection action invoking violations of the rights of women and minors, when his personal assets exceed tens of billions of pesos, of which he has and has disposed of for years, as a result of the generosity and work of his father, engineer William Vélez (RIP)”.
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What’s coming now?
Jorge Enrique Ibáñez, magistrate of the Constitutional Court. Photo:CEET
The guardianship was denied by the municipal criminal court 10 with a guarantee control function of Medellín, on May 15, 2026 – a year after Vélez’s death – as inadmissible. And the ruling was confirmed on June 17 by the fifth criminal court of Medellín under the same argument.
But it will be The Constitutional Court has the last word. The Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO established that in the session on September 30, it was evaluated to study the case and the decision whether to proceed or not will be notified this week.
The Termorichal plant. Photo:Private file
Meanwhile, the Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the payment to a Vélez firm of $42 million from Ecopetrol for the transfer of Termorichal I and II.
*Initially, Mónica De Greiff was noted as the president of the board of Ecopetrol when the deal was evaluated. But she clarifies that although she was part of that collegiate body, she declared herself ineligible for having known about the business when she was part of the board of Pacific Rubiales.
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