Gerardo Reyes Copello (born 1958, Cúcuta, Colombia) is an investigative journalist. He works as director of the investigative unit of Univision Network. He worked at El Nuevo Herald in Miami, Florida. In The Miami Herald,Blofield, M. The Politics of Moral Sin: Abortion and Divorce in Spain, Chile and Argentina. Page 212, Note 1 he won a shared Pulitzer Prize in 1999.
Career Education
Reyes studied law in Bogotá. Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, University of California at Berkeley. April 13–15, 2012.
Trajectory
Gerardo Reyes Copello, born 1958 is a Colombian investigative journalist who leads the investigative team of Univision Network. For more than 30 years, Reyes has devoted himself to investigate corruption schemes in Latin America and the ramifications in the United States of those schemes.
Besides exposing nexus between politicians and drug trafficking, he has dedicated several of his reports to the study of Latin American magnates and the concentration of the wealth in the region.
His individual and collective works have been recognized with the most prestigious journalism awards in Spanish and English, such as the Pulitzer Prize, Maria Moors Cabot, Peabody Award, three Emmy Awards, IRE for investigations and Ortega y Gasset and Planeta.
"Its subject matter is power in all its expressions: politicians, businessmen, officials and police. But also mafia bosses, murderers and corrupt bureaucrats. Reyes unusually combines investigative rigor with good pen '', wrote Lorenzo Morales in the book "Facts for Telling".Hechos para contar: conversaciones con 10 periodistas colombianos sobre su oficio’’, Lorenzo Morales y Marta Ruiz. Editorial Debate, 2014
He has been dedicated to investigative Journalism since 1978.Daniel Santoro (journalist): Técnicas de Investigación (pp 189) México, FCE, 2004 .
In Bogota, Colombia, he was a member of the revolutionary investigative unit of the newspaper El Tiempo, one of the first teams of this type in the hemisphere.
After moving to The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, he published a series of reports highlighting issues ranging from medical malpractice and electoral fraud to drugs and arms trafficking.
He wrote the first systematic guide in Spanish of investigative journalism methods.
He is co-founder of Journalists and Research Editors, an organization through which he has promoted transnational collaboration among his colleagues.
The Beginnings
Gerardo Reyes Copello graduated from Law School at the Santo Tomas de Aquino University in Bogota. His first incursions into journalism began in 1978, as an investigator of Propúblicos, a Bogota foundation that supervised the work of congressmen in matters of bills, assistance and debates.
The results of this review were published by the prominent journalist Daniel Samper Pizano in the newspaper El Tiempo, and then compiled in two guides for voters.¿Por quién votar?, una guía evaluativa de cada congresista, elaboarda por periodistas de investigación para que usted sepa por quién vota’’, Daniel Samper, Fernando Umaña, Alberto Donadio, Alberto Maldonado, Guillermo Rivas, Liliana Tafur, Editorial Oveja Negra, 1982
By that time, Samper founded the investigative unit of El Tiempo, along with Alberto Donadio, an expert lawyer of information access rights.
Both journalists invited Reyes to work on the team that, for over a decade, uncovered numerous official and financial corruption scandals and was emulated by other newspapers in Colombia and Latin America. As part of this team, Reyes published a series that documented bribes paid by the multinational Ericcson to several telecommunications officials in Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Bolivia.“Millonarios sobornos pagó la Ericsson’’, El Tiempo, Sept. 1, 1987. The series was recognized with the National Grand Prize of Journalism in 1987.Gran Premio Nacional de Periodismo en categoría de Prensa, Círculo de periodistas de Bogotá, 9 de febrero de 1987
In 1988 he was hired by the newspaper El Nuevo Herald in Miami, where he worked as sub-editor for the local section and correspondent for Latin America. There he combined his investigative work with chronicles from both Miami and the countries he visited.
In the 1990s, he reported on Colombia's tumultuous presidential elections in the midst of the cartel war against the government. He brought new elements to the scandal of drug money infiltration in President Ernesto Samper's campaign. His work with reporter Evelyn Larubia on the death causes of a Colombian singer, during cosmetic surgery in Miami, led to the arrest of the physician who practiced it.Las crónicas fueron publicadas tanto en El Nuevo Herald como The Miami Herald. “Mala suerte mató a paciente, dice cirujano cosmético’’, El Nuevo Herald, 26 de julio de 1992, p. 1ª.; Cosmetic surgeon blames bad luck for patient’s death’’, The Miami Herald, julio 26, 1992, p. 1ª .
The series received the Hispanic Journalists Association award in 1993 at the Press category. In September 1994, Reyes and his colleague Jeff Leen of The Miami Herald reported that several DEA agents in Colombia had sold Medellin Cartel drug traffickers their diplomatic rights to import cars into that country.“DEA checking if agent helped cartel buy a car’’, The Miami Herald, Gerardo Reyes y Jeff Leen, p. 1A
During these years, Reyes wrote chronicles that were selected for anthologies of Colombian journalism.Las crónicas fueron publicadas originalmente en el diario El Nuevo Herald y luego en el libro de Reyes, “Made in Miami, vidas de narcos, santos, seductores y soplones’’, Editorial Planeta, Colombiana, 1999. Fueron seleccionadas para “Antología de grandes crónicas colombianas’’, Tomo II 1949-2004. Selección y prólogo de Daniel Samper Pizano, Editorial Aguilar 2004; “La pasión de contar: el periodismo narrativo en Colombia, 1638-200’’, Editorial Universidad de Antioquia, Juan José Hoyos, estudio preliminar y selección; Años de Fuego, grandes reportajes de la última década, Editorial Planeta-Semana, 2001 One of them is the story of a Colombian maid who maintained a torrid affair with the great Italian mafia boss in New York Paul Castellano.“Seis años conviviendo con El Padrino’’, El Nuevo Herald, 4 de agosto de 1991, p.1ª
He also published the adventures of a Medellin drug trafficker, who left the drug business to become a trappist monk, who was flocking to find a healing miracle. He also wrote a chronicle about an attractive woman who laundered dollars for the cartels. This last one was taken to the television in the series "The Butterfly".Reyes fue argumentista de esta serie producida por Fox Telecolombia y transmitida por el Canal RCN en 2012 . Su preestreno se realizó en Chile un año antes.
In 1992, he covered the trial of Panamanian General Manuel Antonio Noriega in Miami for El Nuevo Herald and El Tiempo. He also followed the maneuvers of a General of the National Guard of Venezuela to introduce to the United States a ton of cocaine, with the knowledge of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This theme was taken by the show 60 Minutos of CBS. Reyes collaborated with the segment producer, the legendary journalist Lowell Bergman.La pelicula The Insider se basa en un caso de autocensura que provocó la salida de Bergman de 60 Minutes
In 1997, Reyes discovered a secret account of $6 million linked to Nicaraguan Sandinista General Humberto Ortega, brother of the two-time president of that country Daniel Ortega. He also brought to light a plan to kill Cuban President Fidel Castro financed by the powerful Cuban-American Foundation. That same year, he published a report about a group of bankers that, after break in Ecuador, leaving homeless thousands of savers, lived a king's life in Miami.“Banqueros quiebran en Ecuador y viven como Reyes en Miami’’, El Nuevo Herald, 9 de noviembre de 1999, página 4 A In mid-1997 he covered for El Nuevo Herald and The Miami Herald the trial of several operators of a cell for the Cali cartel in South Florida.
In 1998 he participated in The Miami Herald's team which received the Pulitzer Prize for the best investigation.Dirty Votes’’, serie publicada entre diciembre de 1997 y mayo de 1998, en el que se denunció la compra de votos, votantes fallecidos o que no tenían derecho a votar por ser convictos. En la investigación participaron 23 periodistas y editores. The series denounced various forms of corruption in the city's Mayor elections. The Reyes' article of the series found that among the voters there were several people convicted for federal crimes, which should have prevented them from voting.
Investigative Correspondent
In 2000, having published a manual on investigative journalism,“Periodismo de Investigación’’, Gerardo Reyes, Editorial Trillas, México, 1996 Reyes developed an extensive network of contacts with investigative reporters in Latin America. In one of his trips to Venezuela, with the cooperation of the journalist Luz Mely Reyes, he brought to light the first corruption scandal of the government of President Hugo Chávez: the award of a printing contract of the new Bolivarian constitution to mandatary's collaborators and friends.“Aliados de Chávez en negocio polémico’’, febrero 10 de 2000, El Nuevo Herald
He worked with Argentine reporters on the ramifications in the United States of the business of President Carlos Menem and his family; with Peruvians journalists, he revealed the connections of presidential adviser Vladimiro Montesinos. He also worked with Venezuelans reporters in the coverage of a case about a Venezuelan businessman, resident in Miami, that was discovered with a briefcase full of dollars for the campaign of the Argentine president Cristina Kirchner.
In 2003, he covered for El Nuevo Herald and the magazine Semana de Colombia, the trial in Miami against the head of the Medellin cartel, Fabio Ochoa. For his journalistic career and his efforts to integrate Latin American investigative colleagues, Reyes received the Columbia University's Maria Moors Cabot Award in 2004.
In January 2005, under the title "Slaves in Paradise,"“Esclavos en el Paraíso’’, El Nuevo Herald enero 9 de 2005, p. 1A he started a series that exposed the subhuman conditions of Haitian workers in sugar mills in the Dominican Republic.
Based on judicial records and interviews, he published an article in December 2007 that showed the ties of the father of then-Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Velez with a helicopter seized in 1984 in the raid on Tranquilandia, the largest cocaine processing laboratory in the history of the war against drug trafficking in Colombia.“Cabos sueltos en la muerte de Lara Bonilla’’, 9 de diciembre de 2007, p. 1A
The report revealed unpublished judicial statements of the sister of the murdered Minister of Justice, Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, in which he remembered that his brother suspected that Uribe was implicated in drug trafficking. A year before, Reyes had published court documents proving an unknown fact: that Uribe Velez had been accused of the crimes of falsification and contraband in connection with the importation of a Turbocomander aircraft in 1983.“Alvaro Uribe y el caso de la nave del olvido’’, El Nuevo Herald, mayo 14 de 2006. Pag.25A
Together with Gonzalo Guillén, a correspondent for El Nuevo Herald in Bogota, Reyes published other reports that shed light on Uribe Velez's relationship with paramilitarism. One of these reports revealed the testimony of former Colombian paramilitary Francisco Enrique Villaba Hernández, about Uribe and his brother Santiago's involvement in planning a massacre at Aro municipality, Antioquia department, in 1997.“Detalles del testimonio que involucre a Uribe con la massacre de El Aro", Gonzalo Guillén y Gerardo Reyes, El Nuevo Herald, abril 30 de 2008