Nineteen members of neo-paramilitary organization “Los Urabeños” have been arrested over the weekend in several operations in the north and northwest of Colombia, police said Monday.
One of the suspects was apprehended in the city of Medellin, one in the town of Tierraalta, Cordoba, and ten were arrested in the Uraba region where the group originates from, the National Police said in its daily press release.
On Sunday, newspaper El Tiempo reported that another seven alleged neo-paramilitaries were arrested in the northern city of Santa Marta, where the Urabeños are involved in a power struggle with a newly-formed group reportedly led family members and former subordinates of extradited paramilitary warlord Hernan Giraldo, alias “El Viejo.”
The Urabeños are Colombia’s most powerful neo-paramilitary organization that controls most of the drug trafficking routes to the Caribbean.