Six suspected FARC guerrillas were arrested Wednesday in Buenaventura,
Colombia’s main Pacific port, on extortion and murder charges, a
high-level police official said.
The suspects were behind “around some 15 murders here in Buenaventura,”
police chief Col. Angelo Franco Sanabria said, adding that arms and
ammunition were seized during the operation to arrest the men.
Among
the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, members arrested
was a man known as “Miller,” who was the head of the guerrilla group’s
urban cell in the port city.
The suspects were behind the attack
earlier this year on the Children’s and Adolescents Unit of the
Attorney General’s Office in Buenaventura.
The arrests were made
“after surveillance work and intelligence” helped find the suspects,
Franco Sanabria said, adding that the cell belonged to the FARC’s
Manuel Cepeda unit.
The guerrillas extorted money from merchants and storekeepers, murdering those who refused to pay, the police chief said.
Three
years ago, Buenaventura was a battleground between leftist guerrillas
and right-wing paramilitary groups trying to gain control of the drug
trade in the city, which is strategically located between the coast and
the mountains.
The proceeds from trafficking cocaine, which is
smuggled into the United States and countries in Europe, are used to
finance the operations of the illegal armed groups.
The FARC,
Colombia’s oldest and largest leftist guerrilla group, was founded in
1964, has an estimated 8,000 to 17,000 fighters and operates across a
large swath of this Andean nation.