The Colombian power did not do things by halves on the evening of Wednesday May 4. He mounted a spectacular communication operation around the extradition of drug baron Otoniel, often presented as the successor to drug baron Pablo Escobar. The images broadcast by the Colombian media first show a huge, ultra-secure convoy on the highway that leads to El Dorado airport in Bogota, the country’s capital. There are several armored vehicles and dozens of bikers.
We then see Otoniel, in close-up, on the tarmac. It is given to American officers and soldiers in fatigues and dark glasses. He wears a bulletproof vest and a helmet, his feet and fists are bound. He wears a strange smile on his unshaven face: half smirking, half tearful. Colombia’s public enemy number one hurls a few insults at his guards. Then he boarded flight N110. Direction New York, where he must be imprisoned in Brooklyn.
‘Otoniel’ lanzó madrazo y lloró antes de ser subido al avión para su extradition. Mordia sus labios. Luego suspiró y cerró sus ojos, en señal de resignación.
Vea el momento ↓
https://t.co/IHAPWexATH pic.twitter.com/tgXcptIMH0— EL TIEMPO (@ELTIEMPO) May 5, 2022
Immediately after the flight took off, Colombian President Ivan Duque posted a video on Twitter where he confirmed the extradition: “This is the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, legality and the rule of law prevail”says Duque.
Quiero informar que fue extraditado Dairo Antonio Úsuga alias ‘Otoniel’; el narcotraficante más peligroso del mundo, asesino de líderes sociales y policías, abusador de niños, niñas y adolescentes. Hoy triunfan la legalidad, el Estado de Derecho, la #FuerzaPública there justice. pic.twitter.com/K66UhJuWkE
— Iván Duque (@IvanDuque) May 4, 2022
Otoniel was arrested at the end of October 2021, following a spectacular operation in the Colombian jungle. The United States had offered $5 million for his arrest. He has a lot in common with the former drug baron Pablo Escobar killed in 1993. Otoniel is now 50 years old. Real name Dario Antonio Usuga, he was first part of the far-left guerrillas at the age of 18. Before completely changing sides and joining far-right paramilitary groups. Refusing to surrender after the peace agreements with the Farc guerrillas. He then takes the head of the Clan del Golfo, the most important gang of drug traffickers in the country. An organization numbering about 1,600 men. His methods: extortion, mining and especially drug trafficking. About 300 tonnes of cocaine exported each year to some thirty countries, first to the United States, by far the largest outlet for Colombian drugs.
This extradition also occurs in a particular context: Colombia is in the middle of an electoral campaign. General elections are scheduled for the end of the month, May 29, in this country of 50 million people. The strong media coverage of this extradition can therefore be analyzed as a political coup by the right-wing power of Ivan Duque. But that won’t necessarily change the course of the campaign. Duque is very unpopular and the left-wing candidate Gustavo Petro is the big favorite in the ballot. Former mayor of Bogota, associated with an ecologist, this former Marxist guerrilla seems set to overturn the table in a country traditionally marked on the right where the army and the police have considerable political weight. Latin America has also been experiencing, for several months, in many countries, a fairly marked pendulum swing to the left.