Colombian Police have seized assets worth an estimated $15 million from Mexican mafia, local media reported Thursday.
The 58 confiscated assets, including 36 houses and apartments, 15 companies and six luxury cars, belonged to Antonio Bermudez Suaza, alias “El Architecto,” a former right-hand man of Mexican drug lord Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman, said Colombian police chief Jose Roberto Leon Riano.
Suaza was arrested in Mexico in 2008 and is currently in a New York jail. He reportedly cooperated with U.S. officials who worked with Colombia’s police to make the busts, which took place in Bogota, Medellin, Cali and a number of smaller cities in the central Antioquia department.
Colombian authorities believe Suaza attained his fortune by running flights loaded with cocaine from Colombia to the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico.
Since 2010 Colombia’s police force has seized 264 assets belonging to the Sinaloa organization worth an estimated $150 million dollars.
Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped from prison in 2001 and has proven to be an elusive target, and his cartel remains among the largest drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. One of the main reasons that Guzman has managed to remain at large for so long is thought to be his networks of informants within the Mexican security forces, who tip him off about impending raids.
The Sinaloa Cartel continues to smuggle multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico to the U.S.