Documents allegedly exposing ties between two drug traffickers and Venezuelan and Colombian military personnel, land owners, juridical authorities, FARC guerrillas and a fashion model were revealed Friday by Colombia’s La FM Radio.
The documents were said to belong to “Rastrojos” leader Luis Enrique Calle Serna, alias “Comba,” whose brother and partner, Javier Calle Serna turned himself over to U.S. authorities in May. The papers were handed over to the Prosecutor General’s Office by former navy officer Cesar Augusto Narváez in March of 2009, but were not made public until this Friday.
According to one of the documents, dated January 2008, Wilber Varela, alias “Jabon,” who at the time was the head of the now-defunct Norte del Valle Cartel, specified the necessary contacts to move through Venezuelan territory. Those mentioned included officials from the Venezuelan anti-narcotics agency, including its director Luis Correa, and prominent members of the Venezuelan National Guard, including its then-commander Nestor Reverol.
A total of 23 Venezuelan officers and public officials were identified in the document, at the end of which Comba wrote; “Good luck with obtaining money for these contacts.”
A large number of Colombian contacts appeared by name in the document as well, including FARC commanders, a beauty queen and ranking officers in the Colombian Armed Forces, although it did not specify what types of relations Comba kept with these contacts.
According to the document, 36 Colombian contacts, all unnamed, including a general, three colonels, two army majors and two captains from the Navy, were on the payroll of Comba and Jabon.
A second document, dated March 2008, referred to Jabon’s murder on Venezuelan territory in January of that year, alleged to have been carried out by Comba and former Rastrojos leader
Comba began as a guerrilla in the Popular Liberation Army rebel group. When most of the group demobilized in 1991, Comba moved to Colombia’s third largest city Cali, where he established himself as an assassin for the Valle del Cauca-based Norte del Valle Cartel.
In Cali he met the Jabon, leader of the cartel. When Jabon was assassinated in the Venezuelan city of Merida in 2008, the cartel fell apart and Comba took advantage of its extensive network of assassins and informers to build his own drug trafficking group, Los Rastrojos.