Colombia police on Sunday alleged that a former head of “La Oficina de Envigado” ordered the New Year’s Eve massacre that left nine people dead from a prison cell.
The spotlight has fallen on , alias “Sebastian,” who was apprehended by authorities in August of 2012, and is now suspected of ordering the assassinations from prison.
“What we would indicate, neither more nor less, is that the massacre was ordered from a prison cell,” authorities reportedly told El Espectador.
Police now theorize that the massacre, which occured in Envigado, was planned between Sebastian, John Jairo Ramirez, alias “Pichi,” and Fredy Colas, and that the shooting’s main target was Jorge Mario Marin, alias “El Morro.”
Before he met his grisly end, El Morro, one of La Oficina’s kingpins, was allegedly working to consolidate power while eyeing an alliance with the neo-paramilitary group, “Los Urabeños.”
El Morro “made no secret of his desire to attain full control of La Oficina de Envigado”, said authorities, a fact which apparently did not sit well with Sebastian.
Investigators are becoming more and more convinced that the slaughter was therefore a result of internal machinations between five rival blocks within La Oficina after a power vaccum emerged as a result of Sebastian’s arrest. The five factions were allegedly under the respective control of “Mono Pepe”, “El Morro”, “Pichi”, Charles Manger and Fredy Colas.
The prospect that Sebastian was behind the massacre is not an appealing one for authorities, however, as it would signify yet another barrier to limiting factional control.
Now authorities are targeting Pichi, who has emerged as the most likely candidate to unite the five factions of La Oficina.
The above scenario would be following a familiar pattern. Sebastian himself emerged as the leader of La Oficina de Envigado after a similar vacancy occurred when the organization’s previous head, “Don Berna,” was extradited to the United States.