Colombia: Otoniel, the country’s biggest drug trafficker, captured in the jungle

It is all dressed in black and strangely smiling that Otoniel appeared in the first images, surrounded by armed Colombian soldiers. The arrest of this 50-year-old, at the head of the most powerful gang of drug traffickers in Colombia, represents “the hardest blow” carried by the Colombian government to organized crime in the country, according to the head of state.

A blow “only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar”, welcomed President Ivan Duque, who welcomed the capture of this drug trafficker in a message posted on social networks. This leader of the Medellin cartel (north-west) controlled up to 80% of the global cocaine trade and was shot dead by Colombian police in 1993.

Otoniel was arrested in Necocli in the north-west of the country, near the border with Panama. His arrest led to an expedition into the jungle, where he was hiding, “the most important ever in military history” from Colombia, according to President Ivan Duque.

500 members of the security forces, supported by 22 helicopters and satellite support from United States and United Kingdom agencies were mobilized to flush out this drug trafficker, head of the Clan del Golfo, made up of former members of paramilitary groups who have waged a fierce struggle against the left guerrillas until the 2010s.

This 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 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).

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.

In 2017, however, 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.

The fall of Otoniel represents the main success of the government of the Conservative President in the fight against organized crime, this in the largest cocaine-exporting country in the world. He could later be extradited to the United States, where the New York Southern District court indicted him in 2009.

However, and despite four decades of fighting drug trafficking, Colombia remains the world’s leading producer of cocaine. And the United States is the biggest consumer.