Teusaquillo: three dismembered bodies; The Martyrs: six corpses; Kennedy: eight bags of human remains (including the three found in a cart); Engativá: three more bodies; Climb: one; Bag: two; Antonio Nariño: one; North Highway: four, with shots of grace, put in bags and in the trunk of an armored van…
The 28 serial violent deaths that the country’s capital has accumulated in less than eight months are public evidence that, despite the historic low in homicide rates, Bogotá is the epicenter of two bloody wars between mafias.
The confidential information that has been aired in the last two security councils – with the mayor of Bogotá, claudia lopezand the president Gustavo Petro on board – reveals that behind these deaths there are two phenomena that led the local and national governments to take urgent and substantive measures.
“Nine criminal drug trafficking organizations torment Bogotá. Of those 9, three are in criminal dispute. Those three organizations are the ones that are causing the so-called ‘pocketing’”, said Mayor López, last Tuesday, after completing the second security council.
Announcements at the end of the Security Council:
1. The 4 bodies found yesterday were abandoned in Suba and Engativá. The vehicle involved was located in Chapinero and is in the hands of the authorities.
2. 9 criminal structures identified, 3 in criminal dispute. pic.twitter.com/sc0Quh1ADv
– Claudia López Hernández (@ClaudiaLopez) September 6, 2022
The US also investigates
And while Mayor López only mentioned the violent Venezuelan criminal organization known as the Tren de Aragua, Time had access to the dossier in which the names of two other transnational criminal structures are revealed.
About these it is ensured that they are also using macabre tactics in the dispute over the drug trafficking market in Bogotá, which led the Government to create an elite group to try to stop them.
Indeed, 44 officers from the Police Intelligence Directorate (Dipol), the Tax and Customs Police (Polfa) and the Judicial and Criminal Investigation Directorate, Interpol (Dijín), joined the investigations that The Bogotá Metropolitan Police and the Attorney General’s Office were already advancing.
And this newspaper established that federal agents of the United States also track the leaders of these gangs and have in their possession audios in which they talk about their plans for expansion and consolidation in Colombia and in other countries such as Chile, Ecuador and Peru.
“The objective of these organizations is to gain control of the internal cocaine consumption market in Bogotá and in other places, which is clearly growing. There is a lot of cocaine and the price keeps going down, and they want to take over the markets”, he told Time an intelligence officer.
According to judicial information, in addition to 25 members of the Aragua Train, a Mexican mafia cell linked to the Sinaloa cartel operates in Bogotá, and a second Venezuelan criminal structure: ‘los Maracuchos’.
The ones from the old Bronx
Time He learned about the organization chart of the members of the Tren de Aragua, with a mixed component of Venezuelans and Colombians.
The bloodthirsty gang, like ‘los Maracuchos’ (natives of Zulia state), wants to keep the entrenched drug trafficking market in the María Paz, El Amparo, Kennedy and Corabastos neighborhoods, which feed customers who live in areas north of Bogotá.
‘Los Maracuchos’ arrived in the capital three years ago, from Cúcuta, where they engaged in extortion, homicide, micro-trafficking and theft. Its ringleader, Ósmer José Pineda, alias Maracucho, was captured in 2019, in Lima.
Since then, several of his lieutenants have remained in Bogotá.
“Venezuelans seek to take away the market from the capos of the old Bronx of Bogotá who regrouped in the band ‘los Chontaduros’. To draw invisible borders, messages are sent with the dismembered”, he told Time a police source.
And Mayor López added that “in the absence of control and strength, they act viciously to instill fear.” In addition, she was emphatic that none of these criminal groups has control in any area of Bogotá.
Regarding the cruelty that the mayor is talking about, in addition to the houses found in Patio Bonito and Los Mártires, where they would have tortured and murdered people, this Thursday another one was raided, located on 65th Street with Caracas Avenue.
Erick Alberto Parra Mendoza, alias Yeico Masacre, the former Venezuelan military officer who seized the criminal gang of ‘los Meleán’, his countrymen, classifies in this criminal map.
And here the United States reappears. The Colombian media learned that one of the members of the Meleán offered information about ‘Yeico Masacre’ in exchange for staying in that country.
But his criminal record was so violent that they did not accept his collaboration, although federal agencies are also concerned about the expansion of the Venezuelan mafia, paired with Colombian cocaine.
Local gangs such as ‘los Obispos’, ‘los Paisas’, ‘los Boyacos’ and ‘los Camilos’ also participate in this war for control of drug trafficking, who do not want to let the pots and illicit business lines be taken away in Suba, Chapinero , Santa Fe, Los Mártires and Ciudad Bolívar.
trips to dubai
But there is a second war, just as violent, which also takes place in the capital and is linked to the four dead that appeared in the trunk of an armored Toyota truck on August 18.
Chips from the old Bogotá cartel, made up of violent drug lords and ex-paramilitaries, are cashing in old collection accounts and recovering drug dealers and goods through blood and fire.
Gunmen from the collection offices that remain in the surroundings of the sanandresitos of 38 and San José, have carried out at least a dozen homicides in the capital in their name.
To the four of the Toyota joins the murder of the emerald Maximiliano Cañón, on June 2, in a restaurant in the park of the 93; the attack on the exlavador Claudio Silva Otálora, on July 28, and even the crime of the latter’s alleged employer, Luis Caicedo, on July 16, 2021, in Pablo VI.
Federal agents assure that the emissaries of the Sinaloa cartel and alias ‘Pájaro’, an old narco-paramilitary, were involved in this mafia war.
“In addition to trafficking, that cartel is using the emerald gems to launder money,” said a source in Miami.
And another one from the high government told Time that the Mexican drug lords could get in the way of the ‘total peace’ that the Petro administration promotes to bring criminal organizations to justice.
And there is another point of concern: at least one of the recent deaths linked to the mafia made a tour of the United Arab Emirates last July.
as revealed TimeFor months, former capo Julio Lozano Pirateque has been there, who was for years the shadow owner of several shares of the Santa Fe soccer team, and a former partner and friend of the murdered Luis Caicedo.
The Prosecutor’s Office even evaluates versions that indicate that Lozano handed over Caicedo.
And there, in Dubai, Sebastián Meneses also lived, captured last week in Bogotá for drug trafficking. Meneses is the son of the extradited capo Daniel Rendón, ‘Don Mario’, founder of the ‘Gulf clan’.
This structure also has people in Bogotá moving cocaine, weapons and military clothing.
The former uniformed
To rid Bogotá of these mafias, the team of investigators of the so-called multicrime was reinforced with a group of prosecutors specialized in criminal finances and a prosecutor against organized crime.
In addition, ten counterintelligence officers were stationed in the capital. This last component is due to the fact that several ex-military and ex-police officers are among the dead, including Juan Carlos Useche, and Jonathan Smit Martínez Villalobos, one of those dismembered from the El Amparo neighborhood.
And there is evidence that, although these are isolated cases, there are members of the Public Force who work for these gangs or at least allow them to act: there have already been five arrests.
The offensive against the underworld is such that Mayor Claudia López asked the Colombian ambassador to Venezuela, Armando Benedetti, and the Venezuelan ambassador to Colombia, Félix Plasencia, to isolate alias Niño Guerrero and alias Giovani in the Tocorón prison. , leaders of the Tren de Aragua who continue to direct criminal operations that impact Bogotá.
And, although both countries are pleased with the reactivation of relations, the call generated a harsh response from Diosdado Cabello: “They think they are going to teach us lessons with some statements. Here we do fight drug trafficking, violence and we have been victims of the violence brought from Colombia; Where do the hired killers come from? Where do the paramilitaries come from? Now this lady comes to blame Venezuela.”
In any case, for President Gustavo Petro it is clear that to be successful in this fight against the underworld, in addition to force and prisons, “a strong social investment and public education against social exclusion” is needed.
Even so, Mayor López is waiting for the Metropolitan Police force to be increased by 3,000 (to 2023), and it has already been announced that mixed patrols with the Army will continue.