the ‘Gulf clan’ and the explosive revelations of their crimes in the Police’s Operation Agamemnon report

The ‘Gulf clan’ seeks to be recognized with the name ‘Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia’ (Agc) and He assures that he wants to get on the bus of ‘total peace’, one of the flags of Gustavo Petro’s government, but, on the other hand, he increases all types of criminal activities. That is the main conclusion reached by the National Police through the development of Operation Agamemnon.

According to the criteria of

Agamemnon was relaunched on the instructions of President Petro, who demanded strong results against this organized armed group: a network with nearly 5,000 members that, after the capture (October 2021) of its top leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias Otoniel, “has tried to gain a foothold in the territories by diversifying its illicit activities“, as read in a report prepared by the National Police on the current situation of this criminal network to which EL TIEMPO had exclusive access.

This indicates that the judicial authorities have concentrated their efforts on hitting the pillars that support the ‘Gulf clan’ and that the strategy has been to attack its criminal economy, with which “it finances its war component, members, logistics and subcontracting.” of criminal groups under the name of the ‘Gaitanista Army of Colombia’.”

Police analysts reiterate that this name was born as “a political idealism” to disguise “criminal activities; sowing fear and death in the territories, marking their presence with graffiti, homicides and extortion to intimidate the communities.”

In the strategy of hitting their financial lungs, the Police highlight that since the beginning of the Petro government (August 7, 2022 to date) More than 40 tons of cocaine have been seized, representing an approximate loss of 300 million dollars. In February of this year, 5.4 tons of the narcotic that the clan was hiding underground in the rural area of ​​Necoclí, Antioquia, were located.

In fact, the clan is considered the largest network dedicated to cocaine trafficking in the country, which is why the Colombian Police have worked in a coordinated manner at an international level in countries such as Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, the United States, among others; “neutralizing the distribution of the alkaloid and thus, earnings of more than 316 million dollars for the men of ‘Chiquito Malo’”, his current boss.

Parallel to this, in Operation Agamemnon elite groups have been created to identify the ‘invisible drug traffickers’ at the service of the clan – this with the support of the United States intelligence agencies – and thus locate assets to apply the extinction of the right of domain. During the current presidential term, “More than 2,000 assets have been seized, revealing attempts to launder drug moneyusing the financial and commercial system through hotels, restaurants, commercial entities, service stations, among others.”

They extort miners

In the report, the Police report that these assets, which represented close to two billion pesos for this structure, “are now under the control of the Government, further weakening its financial and operational tentacles.”

The second source of financing for this armed group is illicit mining, an activity that, according to the Police, it does not carry out directly, but does generate significant profits, coming from intervention in the extraction chain through “land appropriation, usurpation of mining titles, charges for setting up mines, use of yellow machinery and the removal of gold from extraction areas”.

In fact, the authority indicates that these charges include small extortions from artisanal miners, who must pay under threats of even death. In the operations carried out by the Public Force, gold valued at approximately two million dollars has been seized and machinery valued at twenty-four million dollars has been destroyed.

Clan Expansion

Another aspect of Agamemnon’s strategy is to stop the “criminal expansion that the clan has been brewing in different areas of the countrysuch as the Caribbean, Eastern Plains, Valle del Cauca, Eje Cafetero, the Pacific and Antioquia,” documented the Police, which is concerned about the instrumentalization (recruitment) of boys, girls and adolescents, since under job offers they take them to “the distribution of narcotics” and being subjected to abuses ranging from “trafficking of minors, sexual violence, use of weapons to confront the Public Force and even being shot because they do not comply with orders or because they try to escape.”

The Police documented that the men of the clan have been developing two modalities to recruit minors; first, “the pressure on families, under different intimidating events”, the second way “is to approach educational institutions where they seduce them with the promise of payment and respect”, and take advantage of their low resources.

Likewise, Agamemnon’s report warns once again that the criminal dynamics of this organization have transcended borders to the point of becoming an objective of the United States, particularly in the face of irregular migration. Last week, rewards were offered – between one and 5 million dollars – to capture the main ringleaders who are present in the Darién region and profit from citizens from Asia, Africa, Cuba, Venezuela and Haiti, who They gather in the municipalities of Turbo and Necoclí (Antioquia), waiting to be transported in boats, risking their lives, to Panama. During this journey, victims have reported rapes, robberies, assaults and, in some cases, having been used as mules to transport drugs.

So far in the Petro government, 1,400 people have been captured in the service of ‘Chiquito Malo’, whose given name is Jovanis de Jesús Ávila, one of the most wanted criminals in the country today.

To achieve his capture, the authorities work with the intelligence agencies of several countries allied to Colombia in the fight against drug trafficking.

ALICIA LILIANA MÉNDEZ

Justice Editorial.

In X: @JusticiaET