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Colombian security forces arrested Dairo Antonio Usuga, the country’s number one drug dealer.
The 50-year-old man, better known as Otoniel, was arrested on Saturday in an operation in a rural area of Antioquia province in the Uraba region of Colombia.
Pictures circulated on social media showed Otto’Neill being handcuffed and his face stuck to the ground.
President Ivan Duque compared his arrest to the Colombian drug dealer leader Pablo Escobar arrested thirty years ago.
Duke said Otto’Neill was accused of shipping dozens of cocaine shipments to the United States, killing police officers, recruiting minors, and sexually abusing children.
Colombia offered a reward of up to 3 billion pesos (approximately US$800,000) for information about Otoniel’s whereabouts, while the US government offered a reward of US$5 million to help find him.
“This is the biggest blow in our country’s fight against drug trafficking in this century,” Duke said in a broadcast video message. “This blow can only be compared with the downfall of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s.”
The President said that a policeman died in the operation.
Otoniel was promoted to the leader of the drug cartel Clan del Golfo or Gulf Clan, then served as a left-wing guerrilla, and later as a paramilitary.
Clan del Golfo has approximately 1,200 armed men — most of them former members of far-right paramilitary groups — and are distributed in 10 of Colombia’s 32 provinces.
Authorities stated that in addition to drug trafficking, Clan del Golfo is also involved in illegal mining. The government also accused the organization of threatening and killing community leaders across the country.
‘Will be replaced’
Although Duke said that Otto’Neill’s arrest represented the end of Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s head of risk analysis Sergio Guzman said that the new leader will certainly be waiting to take over.
“This is a big event because he is the largest drug lord in Colombia,” Guzman told a Reuters reporter, adding that his arrest would not change the fundamentals of drug trafficking.
“Otto’Neill will definitely be replaced.”
According to the police, Colombian authorities stepped up their arrests in 2016, killed and captured dozens of his deputies, tracked down his financial situation and forced him to run around constantly.
Leaks and a network of safe houses on rural homesteads have allowed him to resist the scorched earth movement of the army for many years.
But the war caused losses to the fugitives. He even insisted on sleeping on an orthopedic mattress during the escape to relieve his back injuries.
In 2017, he made his first appearance when Pope Francis visited the country and released a video requesting that his group be allowed to lay down their arms and demobilize as part of the country’s peace process. The greater Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC).
However, the plan was never realized.
Authorities said that intelligence provided by the United States and the United Kingdom brought more than 500 soldiers and members of the Colombian Special Forces to the jungle hideout in Ottonil, which is protected by eight circles of security.
Duke said this is “the largest jungle penetration in our military history.”
His arrest was an encouragement to the conservative president, and his law and order rhetoric could not match the soaring cocaine production.
According to a White House report, the land used to produce coca (the raw material for cocaine) increased by 16% last year to a record 245,000 hectares, a level that has not been seen in the United States in its 20-year eradication effort.
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