At least 60 police have been arrested for suspected ties to narco-traffickers so far in 2011 topped by the capture of 25 suspected narco-police on Wednesday.
After 25 police were arrested Wednesday for possible connections to drug traffickers as well as unlawful entry charges, commander of the National Police, General Oscar Naranjo, said it was “a painful and embarrassing day for the institution.”
According to authorities, the departments with the most vulnerability for police corruption by drug gangs are Cordoba, Magdalena, Valle del Cauca, Nariño y Choco.
For Ariel Avila with the NGO Nuevo Arco Iris, this trend of corruption of the police and military forces by drug gangs is anything but new. “It was presented in the cases of the cartels of Cali and Medellin in the 80’s and later with the AUC. In the free versions the demobilized mentioned almost 300 members of the security forces and there are only three investigations,” said Avila in a report from El Espectador.
The surmounting number of police captured so far this year, capped by the Wednesday arrest of 25, brings new importance to the debate the researching and eradicating the corruption of the security forces reported newspaper El Espectador.