• As a result of joint actions between the Office of the Attorney General and the National Police, 34 people were arrested
  • In his visit to Manizales, the Attorney General Francisco Barbosa provided information about this hard blow against four criminal structures.

As part of his institutional policy ‘En La Calle y En Los Territorios’ (near people and territories), the Attorney General, Francisco Barbosa Delgado, launched differential investigation strategies in various regions of the country to tackle, in a focused way, the criminal phenomena that affect these regions.

The operations carried out in the coffee-growing Region allowed, in five days, to join the efforts of the Attorney General’s Office and the National Police to carry out search warrants in municipalities of the Department of Caldas, Quindío and Risaralda. In the proceedings, 32 alleged members of four criminal structures were arrested, and also two other people for isolated events.

These structures are:

  • ‘Los del Barrio’ – Belalcázar (Caldas)

After a one-year investigation, the Sectional Office in Caldas of the Office of the Attorney General achieved the prosecution of 18 alleged members of ‘Los del Barrio’, an illegal network involved in drug trafficking activities in Belalcázar.

According to the evidence, this organization transported illicit substances from La Virginia (Risaralda) to the aforementioned town to retail them. This activity represented an income of COP 30 to 40 million per month.

The Office of the Attorney General charged the detainees with criminal conspiracy to commit a crime, trafficking, manufacture or possession of drugs. Prison sentences were issued against them.

One of the alleged leaders of ‘Los del Barrio’, José Arley González Quintero, alias el Negro or el Viejo, was also charged with aggravated murder for being the alleged mastermind of the murder of a man who was part of the same gang.

  • ‘Los Juniors’ – Armenia (Quindío)

The Office of the Attorney General achieved the prosecution of 8 alleged members of ‘Los Juniors’, a structure that commits crimes in Armenia, Calarcá and Circasia (Quindío). They are allegedly responsible for the theft of cell phones.

The investigations showed that, after the theft of the equipment, the identification systems of the cell phones were modified to sell them through social networks or in commercial premises.

Against ‘Los Juniors’ there are documented facts of 2019 and 2020, for which the Office of the Attorney General charged them with conspiracy, qualified theft, reception and modification of equipment, according to their responsibilities.

A supervisory judge imposed a prison sentence against four of the people and house arrest was issued against another one. The rest were linked to the process.

  • ‘Distrito’ ​​- Pereira (Risaralda)

After the visit of the Attorney General in Pereira last January 28th, when he announced important results against crime, the Sectional Office in Risaralda achieved the arrest of other alleged members of ‘Distrito’, one of the criminal networks that received a hard blow the previous week.

The individuals who were arrested by CTI and prosecuted for the crime of kidnapping are Jhon Jefferson Restrepo, Juan David Ríos Ortiz and Héctor Andrés Jiménez Londoño.

The Office of the Attorney general has evidence that they allegedly participated in an irregular proceeding in which they had entered a house in Pereira arguing that they were looking for money that had been stolen. However, the officers allegedly attacked the owner and took him out of the property and held him for a few hours in a building.

Another 10 alleged members of ‘Distrito’ ​​were previously prosecuted for these same facts.

  • ‘Los Gallitos’ – Pereira (Risaralda)

The Office of the Attorney General prosecuted three people who allegedly belonged to a criminal gang known as Los Gallitos, which would be responsible for extorting residents of Villa Santana, in the main city of Risaralda.

According to the investigation, in one of the cases, the arrested people threatened the victim with death to share the proceeds of his crops and pay 5 million pesos. The victim managed to deliver part of the money, but the crops were destroyed when the victim refused to continue paying.

The CTI of the Office of the Attorney General, with the support of the Police and Gaula- Army, carried out the arrests of Claudia Milena Tabares, Jhonatan Cuartas Arboleda and Jhon Faber Cuartas Arboleda who were charged with aggravated extortion in consistent sequence of serial crime.

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

The information contained in this press release corresponds to the narration of the objective news provided by the officials in charge of carrying out the criminal investigations within the Office of the Attorney General. By the time this communication is disclosed, the legal status of the people mentioned is still pending to be resolved by the competent judicial authority, always under the presumption of innocence contemplated by Article 29 of the Political Constitution and Article 7 of Law 906 of 2004. 

*Coffee growing Region (Eje Cafetero in Spanish)