BOGOTA (Reuters) – Colombia’s armed forces killed no less than 15 members of the Clan del Golfo, a prison group linked to drug trafficking and unlawful mining, throughout a raid on Tuesday, navy sources mentioned.
The raid represents the largest blow to the group since October final yr, when security forces arrested Clan del Golfo’s chief Dairo Antonio Usuga, higher often known as Otoniel, who’s accused of being a very powerful drug trafficker in Colombia’s current historical past.
The operation came about in a rural zone of Ituango municipality in Colombia’s Antioquia province, thought-about strategically necessary for cultivating coca, the chief ingredient in cocaine, in line with security forces.
The Clan del Golfo is basically made up of former far-right paramilitaries who returned to lives of crime after a peace settlement with the federal government. It holds alliances with 5 worldwide organized crime teams for distributing 20 tonnes of cocaine every month, in line with Colombian police.
The Clan del Golfo fields some 1,200 combatants and is battling each dissident members of the demobilized FARC – who reject a 2016 peace deal – and guerrillas of the leftist (*15*) Liberation Army (ELN) for territorial management of key areas for drug trafficking and unlawful mining throughout the South American nation.
(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; Writing by Oliver Griffin; Editing by Bill Berkrot)
