 The scandal was triggered in 2016 by an opinion article published in the Colombian newspaper "El Espectador", which reported in April 2016 that Peñalosa did not hold a doctoral degree as had been widely reported by several sources, including in the personal profile section in several of his published books.Opinion writers in "El Espectador" discovered that Peñalosa did not hold a doctoral degree, after contacting the University of Paris which confirmed that it did not offer any academic program that would grant a PhD in Public Administration.The magazine "Semana" also reported that during the swearing-in ceremony of the Mayor on January 2016, a leaflet had been circulated among news media that presented Peñalosa as a PhD of Public Administration, which the mayor dismissed as typing errors by someone in his team.