Colombian authorities captured Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel, the country's most wanted drug trafficker, on Saturday.
Úsuga, the top leader of the Clan del Golfo criminal organization, remained on the run for more than a decade, bribing state officials and aligning himself with combatants from the left and right.
“It is the most forceful blow that has been caused to drug trafficking in this century.
It is only comparable to the fall of Pablo Escobar ... (at the beginning of) the 90s ”, said President Iván Duque when confirming the capture in an official statement accompanied by his military leadership.
The Colombian military forces presented Úsuga to the media handcuffed and wearing rubber boots like those used by farmers in rural areas.
Úsuga, better known by his nickname Otoniel, is the alleged leader of the feared Clan del Golfo, whose army of assassins has terrorized much of northern Colombia to take control of important routes for cocaine trafficking through thick jungles to the north of Central America and towards the United States.
One of the most wanted drug traffickers in Colombia, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias 'Otoniel', leader of the Clan del Golfo cartel, after his capture at a military base in Necoclí, Colombia, on Saturday, October 23, 2021. the Presidency of Colombia via / AP
He had long been on the list of most wanted fugitives by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), for whose capture he had offered a reward of five million dollars.
Úsuga, 50, is wanted by the Southern District of New York for crimes associated with drug trafficking, charges filed against him in 2009. He also has other charges pending in federal courts in Miami, Tampa and Brooklyn, where he was accused of sending 73 tons of cocaine to the United States between 2003 and 2014 through various countries, including Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, and Honduras.
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Colombian authorities were on the trail of Otoniel for almost seven years, considering him a "maximum value target" and offering up to 3,000 million pesos (approximately $ 795,000) for information that would help find his whereabouts.
President Duque highlighted the work of the public force and intelligence and indicated that they shared "information with agencies of the United States and the United Kingdom, given the dangerousness of this criminal."
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Alias “Otoniel”, designated for crimes such as drug trafficking, homicide, arms trafficking, forced recruitment and child abuse, has 128 arrest warrants and convictions in Colombia and two Interpol red circulars, police said in a statement.
Otoniel sexually abused minors that he took to his camps, a practice replicated by other leaders and lower-ranking members of the Gulf Clan.
The Army released photographs of Otoniel handcuffed and guarded.
The commander of the Military Forces, General Luis Fernando Navarro, indicated that the operation was planned on October 15 in a military garrison in Bogotá and carried out at dawn this Friday by more than 500 members of the special forces.
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The police explained that alias "Otoniel" was hiding in the mountains of the Nudo de Paramillo, in the department of Antioquia, in the center of the country, where he had eight security rings and his movements were monitored by 50 satellite intelligence experts.
They received information from human sources and also discovered that he did not communicate by cell phone or take refuge in homes and eat food from the region where he was hospitalized.
In his criminal career, Úsuga went through groups of the extreme left and right.
First he was part of the defunct leftist guerrilla called the Popular Liberation Army, then the paramilitaries in the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia and although its members demobilized in 2005, he continued to commit crimes together with his brother Juan de Dios Úsuga David, alias “Giovanny” .
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Colombian authorities estimate that the Clan del Golfo has among its ranks more than 3,500 people.
José Miguel Vivanco, director for the Americas of Human Rights Watch (HRW), congratulated the Colombian authorities for the capture of the leader of the Clan del Golfo to bring to justice “for the hundreds of crimes committed under his command.
Victims deserve justice, ”he tweeted.
"For this capture to help prevent new abuses, serious efforts must be made to fully dismantle armed groups, protect the population and ensure justice," Vivanco added.
