Colombia’s National Police have seized 78 rifles allegedly belonging to the Sixth Front of the rebel group FARC in the southwestern Cauca department, said the police in a press statement Friday.
Police said the firearms, of various calibers, had been smuggled across to Ecuadorean border to Colombian territory. Allegedly, FARC militia members in Nariño and Cauca helped facilitate the transport from Ecuador to Caloto, Cauca, where the shipment was seized by Colombian police aided by U.S. DEA agents.
Colombian intelligence sources said the seized weapons were to be used in new attacks against the police and military in the municipalities of Caloto, Corinto and Toribio, wgere fighting between the FARC and the army has been particularly intense the past few weeks.
Police blamed alleged FARC member Arley Medina Prado, alias “Jaimito,” for organizing the shipment. Jaimito is considered to be the bodyguard of “Sargento Pascuas,” the leader of the Sixth Front, who joined the FARC in 1964 and is considered the last original FARC guerrilla still active the organization.
According to the police, the FARC bought the weapons from Ecuadorean suppliers in exchange for an unspecified amount of cocaine.
The Sixth Front of the FARC is considered one of the FARC’s biggest and most militarily powerful units in Colombia’s southwest. It is believed to have some 400 to 500 active guerrilla fighters and an unknown amount of militia members offering logistical support and intelligence gathering.