A forensic expert, three police officers and a music manager have been jailed for covering up the 2015 murder of Venezuelan rapper Cancebello.
Cancebello, named the best Spanish-language rapper by Rolling Stone magazine, was drugged and stabbed to death by his manager Natalia Amestica.
Amestica and her brother then threw his body out of a tenth-floor window.
Five people sentenced Tuesday were found guilty of helping the siblings stage the crime scene so Cancebello’s murder looked like a suicide.
They were sentenced to 15 to 20 years in prison.
Natalia Améstica and her brother Guillermo were sentenced to 25 years in prison for murder back in February.
The death of Cancebello (real name Tirone Gonzalez) on January 19, 2015 shocked the Venezuelan rap community.
It was ruled at the time that the 26-year-old star killed his friend Carlos Molnar during a knife fight and then jumped from a window.
But in December 2023, Natalia Amestica pleads guilty to stabbing Molnar and Cancebello.
In a video statement released by Venezuela’s attorney general last year, she recounted what happened that night.
Natalia Amestica claims she was angry with the rapper after learning Cancebello no longer wanted her as his manager.
She described how on January 19, 2015, Cancebello came to her apartment in the Venezuelan city of Maracay.
He was accompanied by his friend Carlos Molnar, who is also Natalia Améstica’s long-term boyfriend.
“The opportunity arose to make them tea,” she explains in the video, adding that she spiked their drinks with a powerful tranquilizer.
When her drugged partner Carlos Molnar entered the kitchen, she stabbed him in the neck, back and arms.
Cancebello witnessed Amestica assault her boyfriend, but he collapsed on the couch under the influence of the drug Amestica injected him.
Amestica then stabbed him twice.
“In desperation, I called my brother Guillermo to help me solve this problem,” she said in the video confession.
Her brother arrived with three officers from Venezuela’s intelligence agency Sabine, who have now been sentenced.
“They staged the scene to look like a murder-suicide,” Natalia Amestica said.
She said police “stabbed Carlos” [Molnar] A few more times, my brother Guillermo stabbed him four times. Sabine officials did the rest.”
“We were then told how to throw him out of the window to complete a murder-suicide scenario,” she said in her deposition.
Her brother Guillermo said a forensic detective who arrived at the scene became suspicious and said the scene appeared to be “rigged.”
According to Guillermo Améstica, the forensic expert demanded a $10,000 (£7,880) bribe in exchange for helping the siblings cover up the crime and make it look like Cancebello attacked Molnar before jumping out of the window.
The fifth man sentenced on Tuesday was music agent Marcos Pratolongo, who provided security for some of Cancebello’s concerts.
At the time of Pratolongo’s arrest, Venezuela’s attorney general said that Pratolongo had the keys to Cancebello’s apartment, but that important evidence had disappeared from the apartment.
Pratolongo was found guilty of being an accessory to Cancebello’s murder, the justice minister said in a social media post on Tuesday, without providing further details about his role in the crime.