Three Colombian drug traffickers wanted by the United States authorities were captured on Thursday in separate operations in Colombia and the US, according to authorities.
Luis Fernando Ospina, alias “Caneco”, and Luis Felipe García, alias “Pipe”, were captured in Colombia’s second-largest city Medellin, while Carlos Mario Duque, alias “Buñuelo,” was arrested in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
The North District Court of Georgia, based in Atlanta, wanted the men extradited for three charges of trafficking heroin. They are also accused of laundering the money received from the trafficking of the illicit substances.
The capture of the alleged drug traffickers involved the National Anti-narcotic Unit of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Maritime Interdiction, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the anti-narcotics police, and the Criminal Investigation Bureau (Dijin).
The arrests came on the same day that Colombia’s police captured two notorious drug traffickers in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, Jhair Generoso Paternina Cristopher, alias “Jhair,” and Rodolfo Ruiz Suárez, alias “Rodo.”
According to a statement released by the police, Jhair and Rodo were in charge of logistics relating to receiving, organizing and sending illicit drugs in go-fast boats from Colombia’s Caribbean coast to the San Andres archipegalo, from where it would be transported to Central America and finally the US. They allegedly worked with different criminal gangs and neo-paramilitary groups, including the Paisa, Rastrojos, and the Urabeños.
They will be extradited to the US to face charges for drug trafficking in a district court in Florida.
MORE: Colombian drug traffickers wanted by US captured in Cartagena
Sources
- Capturados cinco colombianos pedidos en extradición por Estados Unidos (Prosecutor General’s Office)
- Caen 5 narcos colombianos reclamados por EE.UU. (El Espectador)