COLOMBIAN President Juan Manuel Santos’s re-election campaign descended into confusion today when its chief strategist resigned over claims he was linked with drugs gangs.

Juan Jose Rendon threw in the towel amid allegations that he took $12 million (£7m) from some of the country’s top drug lords in exchange for helping negotiate their surrender.

The allegations against were published over the weekend by newspaper El Espectador and news magazine Semana. 

Both reports cited testimony from a US jail by Javier Antonio Calle, who was one of Colombia’s most hunted drug traffickers until he turned himself into the Drug Enforcement Administration in 2012.

Mr Rendon acknowledged that he had been approached by intermediaries of Mr Calle and other drug bosses after President Santos’s 2010 election, but he denied taking any money for communicating to the president their offer to disarm in exchange for concessions such as protection from extradition to the US.

Police and prosecutors also acknowledged discussing the initiative with Mr Rendon, but they claim to have rejected it out of hand. 

Mr Calle ended up turning himself in to US drug agents on the island of Aruba a year later.

President Santos called his campaign strategist’s resignation a “gallant” gesture designed to avoid distracting from the campaign in its final stretch. 

Colombia’s chief federal prosecutor is looking into the matter and will send prosecutors to New York to interview Mr Calle before deciding whether to open an inquiry into Mr Rendon and former Santos political adviser German Chica.