The Colombian navy reported the capture of eighteen members of the criminal organization Los Rastrojos in Choco, on the Pacific coast north east of Bogota.
According to military sources, troops with the Fluvial Assault Battalion of the Marine Infantry spotted a boat transporting eighteen subjects who identified themselves as members of the Los Rastrojos gang. The detainees reportedly expressed their desire to submit to the authorities, owing to poor health conditions, abuses by the gang's leadership, and unremitting pressure of the national forces on this part of Choco.
"The subjects claimed to be part of Los Rastrojos, two of whom are minors of sixteen and seventeen years. The other sixteen subjects are aged between 19 and 43 years," the source told daily El Espectador.
Upon searching the subjects, troops found two suppliers for a mini-Uzi submachine gun, and a notebook containing information on the outlaw group.
Less than a week ago, as part of the same operation, sixteen members of the same gang engaged in drug trafficking were captured by the authorities. They were operating outof a camp equipped with a complex system of trenches near the rural village of Santa Cecilia, on Colombia's Pacific coast.
