Colombia: arrest of “Otoniel”, the biggest drug trafficker in the country

The Colombian government announced, Saturday, October 23, the arrest of Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel”, the most wanted drug trafficker in the country. “This is the hardest blow 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, 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 about “The most important penetration into the jungle ever seen in the military history of our country”, according to Duque.

500 members of the security forces, 22 helicopters

Colombian police conducted “A major satellite operation with agencies in 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.

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”, senior leader of the Clan del Golfo ”, said on Twitter Emilio Archila, adviser to President Ivan Duque.

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.

Couriers rather than telephone

The 50-year-old drug trafficker was at the head of the Clan del Golfo, made up of former members of paramilitary groups who waged a fierce struggle against left-wing guerrillas until the 2010s. The cartel, financed mainly through trafficking drug abuse, 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. “He moved with eight safety circles” around him, said General Vargas.

Otoniel had become the leader of the Clan del Golfo after the death of his brother Juan de Dios, “Giovanni”, during clashes with the police in 2012. He had taken 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 leading producer of cocaine, of which the United States is the leading consumer.