Bogota authorities capture FARC alias ‘El Cantante’

Colombian police captured FARC member linked to 30 murders in the Ciudad Bolivar neighborhood of Bogota, Monday morning.

According to Bogota police director Francisco Patiño Fonseca, the arrest of Carlos Humberto Valencia, alias “El Cantante,” was the result of months of investigation.

Fonseca said that El Cantante is tied to more than 30 homicides that have taken place in the capital, and that his operations in the area were affecting citizens, merchants and the transportation system.

He also formed part of the security ring of alias “Fabian Ramirez,” the former leader of the FARC’s Southern Bloc who was reported killed by authorities last November, but whose actual death has remained in question.

El Cantante was a 13-year member of the FARC who apparently hid his ties to the organization by pretending to be a musician, thus giving him the name that means “the singer,” reported RCN Radio. The captured guerrilla has been sent to a Bogota jail.

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