Colombia said Thursday that “Comba,” the supreme leader of drug gang “Los Rastrojos” and the country’s most wanted drug lord, has surrendered to U.S. authorities.
Comba, whose real name is Luis Enrique Calle Serna, surrendered to U.S. authorities on Tuesday, the police said in a press release.
The last founder of the Rastrojos had been operating his drug empire from Venezuela, but traveled to Panama to surrender to agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), said Colombia’s Defense Minister at a press conference in Bogota.
“These criminals have no option. The pressure by the security forces leaves them no room and that’s why they end up handing themselves in,” Pinzon said, adding that all top commanders of the drug trafficking organizations have been either killed or arrested.
Comba, who began his criminal career in the now-defunct Norte del Valle cartel, was the last of the three supreme leaders of the Rastrojos to still be running what has been considered Colombia’s most powerful drug trafficking organization since the demobilization of paramilitary organization AUC in 2006 and the falling apart of the Norte del Valle due to infighting around 2005.
His brother Javier Antonio, also called Comba, surrendered to the DEA in Aruba in May, while “Diego Rastrojo” was arrested by Venezuela in June.
The arrest of “El Loco Barrera,” dubbed “the last of the great capos” last month, closed the net around Comba, whose security was arranged by Barrera, Colombia’s defense minister said.