Friday 26 April 2013

Colombian Minister confirms gangster "neutralised," police seize drugs in Bogotá

Colombia's Minister of Defence Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno confirmed on 24 April the shooting death of a suspect identified as deputy-head of the Urabeños, one of Colombia's main crime gangs, which the minister vowed would be weakened "once and for all" in 2013. Pinzón said the Urabeños were "perhaps" the last gang of "a national size and this year we have imposed the objective of weakening its existence once and for all," the Ministry website reported. Pinzón said police caught up with the suspect - a man dubbed el Negro Sarley - early that day in the north-western district of Turbo, killing him in a shootout and detaining a presumed bodyguard. "As the so-called military chief of the Urabeños, this criminal participated in massacres and numerous homicides and is perhaps [also] one of those most responsible" for exporting cocaine, he said. Pinzón listed those heads of the Urabeños the state had captured or killed recently. These were a man dubbed Leo, head of the gang in the north-eastern part of the northern department of Antioquia captured in Ecuador in January 2013, and the gang's supreme chief in 2012 - Giovanny - killed a year earlier. Pinzón said the presumed gang leader now was a man dubbed OtonielGiovanny's brother and brother-in-law of the slain el Negro Sarley. The Ministry also reported on 23 April that police confiscated just under 5.9 tonnes of marijuana that day or before in Bogotá, in several interventions wherein six suspects were also held. Investigations indicated the marijuana had likely come from the southern department of Cauca where authorities believe the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)'s Sixth Front produce drugs, the Defence Ministry reported. The army separately reported that 75 guerrillas deserted from the FARC in Cauca "in the last" 90 days, compared to 21 in a similar period in 2012, Caracol radio reported on 25 April, citing declarations by General Sergio Segura, head of the army's Third Division. The report did not specify when exactly the 90 days began. Segura said "many guerrillas have seen they are being abandoned and that it is the leaders who receive privileges," adding that the government was concentrating its demobilization campaigns in that part of the country.