Fifty-year-old Otoniel is the head of the Los Urabeňos gang, also known as the Clan del Golfo, which controls much of the drug trade in Colombia.
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Saturday’s operation in which he was caught was carried out by the armed forces of a South American country, confirmed by military and police sources.
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Colombia offered a reward of up to three million pesos (over 17.5 million crowns) for information about Otoniel’s whereabouts. The United States has offered a reward of up to five million dollars (over 110 million CZK) for the information leading to his capture.
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Otoniel has been detained in the Urabá region of northwestern Colombia, Colombian President Iván Duque said on Saturday night.
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According to him, this is the “hardest hit against the drug trade” in Colombia so far in this century. Duque compared Otoniel’s detention to an action that resulted in the killing of drug lord Pablo Escobar in 1993.
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$ 500 for every dead cop
“Otoniel was the most feared drug boss in the world, a killer of police, soldiers and local activists,” Duque told a news conference in Bogota, Colombia.
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According to the president, the detention of Otoniel probably means the end of the Clan from the Gulf. Duque also called on the remaining members of the clan to resign or feel the “full weight of the law.”
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The gang itself has rewarded several times in the past for removing uncomfortable people. For example, in 2012, police found leaflets offering a reward of $ 500 for each police officer killed.
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According to Reuters, the Klan has about 1,200 armed men from the Gulf, mostly former members of far-right paramilitary groups. It operates in ten of the 32 Colombian provinces.
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In 2016, the Colombian authorities launched Operation Agamemnon, which aimed to capture Otoniel, who then had to constantly change his whereabouts.
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In March, Colombian police, in cooperation with the US Anti-Narcotics Agency (DEA), detained Otoniel’s sister Nina Johani Usuga, who was extradited to the United States, where she faces charges related to drug trafficking and money laundering.
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The U.S. State Department considers Otoniel to be the head of a “heavily armed, extremely violent” organization that uses “violence and intimidation” to control drug trafficking routes and cocaine labs.
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