An unidentified member of “Los Urabeños” kills one of the gang’s suspected leaders, Felix Arrieta Llorente, alias “Piraña,” in the northern department of Cordoba, El Heraldo newspaper reported Wednesday.
According to police chief Hector Paez Valderrama the incident took place on the border between Monteria and Tierralta “when an argument broke out between gang members who’d been pursued by a police helicopter.”
Piraña is believed to be responsible for at least 15 murders in southern Cordoba, one of them a police officer who was killed in the area in January.
According to El Meridiano de Cordoba, the incident took place in a locality where there is frequently violence between gangs, and on the previous day a battle took place there between “Los Rastrojos” and Los Urabeños.
El Heraldo reports that such gangs are increasingly recruiting children to replace gang members who have been arrested, convicted and imprisoned. The newspaper explains that the pressure being exerted on the BACRIMS by Cordoba’s Plan Troya, and the pressure of the general public is forcing the gangs to replace its lost members with much younger recruits.
As Colombia Reports recently reported, Plan Troya was designed to “asphyxiate the financial sources” of illegal groups operating in the region.
