Rodolfo Betancourt Herrera, alias Fito, noted leader of the FARC dissidents killed in combat.
Photo: Armed Forces
Police and Military Forces officials presented the death of Rodolfo Betancourt Herrera, alias Fito, considered second in command of the Dagoberto Ramos structure of Iván Mordisco’s FARC dissidents as a result. The operation took place in the Potosí village, in the rural area of Toribío (Cauca).
According to the Military Forces, the troops arrived at the village where a commission from the group called the Central General Staff remained. There a combat took place that resulted in the death of this so-called ringleader. On his record is the forced recruitment of minors, extortion, kidnapping, selective homicides and drug trafficking.
“According to information held by the authorities, this subject, 31 years old, eight of whom committed crimes, would have participated in the planning and execution of several terrorist actions against the civilian population and the Public Force, among which the following stand out: the homicide of two indigenous people in a rural area of the municipality of Toribío, on October 18, 2020,” the Military Forces explained.
Likewise, alias Fito is accused of being responsible for the car bomb that exploded in March 2021 in front of the Mayor’s Office of Corinto (Cauca), after which 43 people were injured. The authorities also point to the murder of two Police patrolmen, including a woman, in the San Pedro de Santander village of Quilichao, and the double homicide of leaders of the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca.
The authorities reported this result as progress in the persecution of the FARC dissident factions that are not in the process of a ceasefire with the government of Gustavo Petro. They assured that, with the death of Fito, the logistical and criminal networks of this group were significantly affected, by “neutralizing” a man who strengthened the “mental conditions” of the “ringleaders” of the area.
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