When the Los Angeles Timesbroke a story on CIA evidence of collusion between the head of the Colombian army, Gen Mario Montoya, and murderous right-wing paramilitaries, a scandal that has shaken the country's political establishment has been brought one step closer to the so-far-untarnished president Alvaro Uribe.
Gen Montoya, who denies the charges, is alleged to have collaborated in 2002 in a crackdown on Medellin left-wing militants with, among others also classified by the US state department as terrorists, a gang headed by a notorious drug baron sought by the US authorities.
The 31,000-strong right-wing gangs, no less than their left-wing counterparts, have been implicated in murders, kidnappings, and trafficking, and are now supposed to have been demobilised under a controversial amnesty law that many believe left their leaders in positions of key influence in parliament and with elements of Mr Uribe's conservative administration.
So far the scandal over politicians' links with the paramilitaries has seen his foreign minister resign after her senator brother was arrested and a warrant was issued for the capture of their father, and the imprisonment of seven other parliamentarians and a regional governor. Other national and local politicians are being questioned. Mr Uribe's former top security chief was also detained for several weeks over claims he allowed paramilitary access to the country's internal security agency.
The Montoya disclosures come at an embarrassing time for Mr Uribe. The now Democrat-controlled US Congress, due to debate a trade agreement with Colombia and a new aid package, has been increasingly uneasy about both the effectiveness of US subsidies to the country's war on drugs and the Bush administration's closeness to Mr Uribe. President Bush called him a "personal friend" during a recent Bogota visit and he is one of the administration's closest allies in Latin America. Some Democrats have threatened to try to cut the Colombian military's portion of a $3.9-billion aid package. Eighty per cent of US aid to Colombia goes to the military and police and it is the US's third largest recipient of foreign aid.
So far Mr Uribe, a hard right populist who was re-elected to the presidency last summer with a substantial majority, appears to have been untouched by the row. He claims that the fact charges have been brought against politicians shows his government pursues crime without fear or favour. But his own past associations and closeness to Montoya will ensure that the questions do not go away.