Colombian authorities paid 400 million pesos to a variety of sources for the information that lead to the capture of Luis Arnulfo Tuberquia, a.k.a. ‘Memín’, allegedly one of the country’s top regional narcotraffickers and head of the paramilitary group Águilas Negras’.
In addition to the payments, announced by Bogotá’s Metropolitan Police commander, general Rodolfo Palomino, nearly two months of intelligence work and a final operation assisted by helicopters was required to capture Tuberquia and three associates, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos told W Radio.
The 40-year-old Tuberquia, former block commander of the United Self Defense Forces — the now demobilized umbrella paramilitary group known as AUC for its Spanish initials — left the demobilization process in 2004 to form a drug trafficking band in Antioquia, a department in northwest Colombia, reported Caracol Radio.
Tuberquia, who also went by the nicknames ‘El Indio’ or ‘El Topo’, has already been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the 1998 disappearances of brothers Jairo and Oscar Covaleda Roldán. He is also sought for the 2003 death of a superintendent of the National Police and the kidnapping of a National Police captain in the same year.