• The Office of the Attorney General and the National Navy arrested 13 alleged members of a criminal organization involved in transporting cocaine in cargo ships to Central America and Europe.
  • For the first time, an Attorney General led an operation of this magnitude from an Advanced Operations Base.

The Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado; and the commandant of the Caribbean Navy, the rear admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo Obregón, directed and followed in detail the execution of a structural operation against a drug trafficking network identified as the main responsible for a shipment of cocaine from the Colombian Caribbean and one of the allies of the so-called ‘Clan del Golfo’.

Members of the Technical Investigative Corps (Cuerpo Tecnico de Investigación CTI) of the Office of the Attorney General and Navy units, in a simultaneous and joint work arrested 13 alleged members of this organization in proceedings carried out in Cartagena (Bolívar), Barranquilla (Atlántico) and Santa Marta (Magdalena). In the proceedings, two firearms were seized, as well as documents and other items of vital importance for the investigations.

The arrested individuals were in charge of maintaining an illegal pattern of camouflage of narcotics inside the cargo, containers or ships that left the maritime terminals of this area of ​​the country to Europe and Central America.

The investigations established that they allegedly resorted to employees belonging to fluvial transport companies to identify routes and boats or products that they could contaminate with cocaine caches. There is also information that proves that they used, people who climbed up the containers or ships to hide cocaine (‘trepadores’ or ‘micos’ in Spanish). These maneuvers, in an almost suicidal manner, were often carried out in the high seas while the boats were in motion.

Among the arrested people: alias Hermanita or Osvaldo, alleged leader and main link with the so-called ‘Clan del Golfo’ in Bolívar; in addition to the financiers of the criminal organization, logistical coordinators, those in charge of collecting the drugs in farms near the ports and employees of maritime transport companies, among others.

“This operation is the result of a joint work of Colombian institutions. As I have mentioned several times, we pursue criminality with all legal tools and the Office of the Attorney General with its itinerancy and by strengthening its investigative activity is doing that”, highlighted the Attorney General when he announced this important result.

Those people arrested will be brought before a supervisory judge. A prosecutor appointed to the Special Directorate against Drug Trafficking will charge them with aggravated criminal conspiracy; trafficking, manufacture or possession of drugs, and other crimes, depending on the degree of participation.

“These 13 arrests are the result of a special simultaneous operation, perfectly coordinated with the Attorney General’s Office. We will continue developing this type of operations that seek to decisively affect the scourge of the drug trafficking phenomenon in Colombia”, stated the rear admiral Juan Ricardo Rozo Obregón.

In the last year, 6 procedures were carried out against this structure, in which about 2 tons of cocaine hydrochloride, more than COP 220 million and 3 vehicles were seized, and 3 people were arrested in flagrante delicto.

Fight against drug trafficking

Thanks to the prioritization of actions against drug trafficking, defined by the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, in the 2020-2024 Strategic Direction, in 2020 325 tons of drugs were seized. In 29 days of the year 2021, the seizures of cocaine and marijuana exceed 10 tons.

The Office of the Attorney General makes this information public for reasons of general interest.

The Office of the Attorney General produces results.