(Bogota) The Colombian government announced on Saturday the arrest of Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, the most wanted drug trafficker in the country, for whom the United States had offered a reward of 5 million dollars.
“It is the hardest blow that has been dealt to drug trafficking in this century in our country. […] only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar ”, welcomed President Ivan Duque, in a message posted on social networks.
Pablo Escobar, head of the Medellin cartel (north-west) which controlled up to 80% of the global cocaine trade, was shot dead by Colombian police in 1993.
Images released by the Colombian government show Otoniel, strangely smiling, dressed in black, handcuffed and surrounded by armed Colombian soldiers. The drug trafficker was captured in Necocli in the northwest of the country, near the border with Panama.
It was “the largest jungle expedition ever in our country’s military history,” said Duque.
SCREENSHOT COLOMBIAN ARMED FORCES / FRANCE-PRESS AGENCY
The Colombian police carried out “an important satellite operation with agencies of the United States and the United Kingdom”, explained in a press conference the director of the police force, the general Jorge Vargas.
The operation, during which a police officer was killed, mobilized some 500 members of the security forces, supported by 22 helicopters, he said.
“Otoniel” was then transferred at the end of the day on Saturday to Bogota by plane, where he was taken to the police station under heavy escort, according to police images.
The Clan del Golfo is Colombia’s most powerful drug trafficking gang and the arrest of its leader represents the Colombian government’s biggest blow to organized crime in the country.
“Special recognition to the security forces […] for the capture in Necocli of Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, top leader of the Clan del Golfo, ”Emilio Archila, adviser to President Ivan Duque, said on Twitter.
The United States had offered a reward of $ 5 million for his capture.
Otoniel, who was indicted by the American justice in 2009, is in particular the subject of an extradition procedure in the court of the southern district of New York.
Next extradition?
“There are extradition orders for this criminal and we will work with the authorities to achieve this goal as well,” President Duque commented.
The fall of “Otoniel” represents the main success of the government of the Conservative President in the fight against organized crime in the largest cocaine-exporting country in the world.
The 50-year-old drug trafficker was the head of the Clan del Golfo, made up of former members of paramilitary groups who waged a fierce struggle against the left-wing guerrillas until the 2010s.
The cartel, funded mainly through drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion, is present in nearly 300 municipalities across the country, according to independent think tank Indepaz.
The Colombian government accuses the Clan del Golfo of being one of the responsible for the worst wave of violence that shakes the country since the signing of the peace agreement in 2016 with the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, Marxist ).
In 2017, Otoniel announced his intention to reach an agreement to go to justice. The government responded by deploying as many as 1,000 troops to hunt him down.
According to police, the drug trafficker was hiding in the jungle, in the Uraba region, where he is from, and did not use a telephone, relying on couriers to communicate.
Harassed by the authorities, he “slept there in the rain, never approaching inhabited areas,” General Vargas assured.
“He was moving with eight safety circles” around him, he said.
Otoniel had become the leader of the Clan del Golfo after the death of his brother Juan de Dios, “Giovanni”, in clashes with the police in 2012.
He took up arms at the age of 18 as a guerrilla in the People’s Liberation Army (EPL), a Marxist guerrilla demobilized in 1991.
After laying down his arms, he returned to fight in the far-right paramilitary groups.
Many of these groups were demobilized in 2006 at the initiative of the government of the former right-wing president Alvaro Uribe (2002-2010). But Otoniel had decided to stay illegal.
Despite four decades of fighting drug trafficking, Colombia remains the world’s largest producer of cocaine, of which the United States is the largest consumer.