By: Staff Writer
May 9, 2023
The Colombian Navy dealt hard blows to narcotrafficking, leading several combined operations with forces from the region in March, which resulted in the seizure of more than 4 tons of cocaine hydrochloride on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and the Pacific coast of Colombia, to go along with the arrest of popular former Colombian footballer Diego Leon Osorio,
The mid-March operations among the Colombian Navy, Costa Rica’s National Coast Guard, and U.S. Southern Command’s Joint Interagency Task Force South (JIATF-South) once again demonstrated the importance of interoperability in the fight against transnational criminal organisations.
The Osorio arrest was during his attempt to board a flight to Madrid, Spain, on April 8, from an airport near Medellin “with 1,849 grams of cocaine hydrochloride,” police said in a message sent to the media.
All of this culminating with the government’s attempt to broker peace with some of the country’s major drug cartels.
During several hours of conversations last week with the media, the political commander of the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, the country’s largest drug cartel, explained that he wanted the public to understand the organisation from inside, to get an up-close look at its self-proclaimed political mission.
This move comes as the leftist government of President Gustavo Petro is pursuing an ambitious plan for “total peace,” an attempt to simultaneously dismantle multiple armed groups, and end the violence and killings that have long beset the country. More than one million people have died in Colombia’s decades-long conflict, according to government figures, and more than 8.4m have been displaced from their homes.
Meanwhile, last month, President Petro suspended a ceasefire with the country’s other main drug trafficking cartel, the Gulf Clan.
He accused it of “sowing anxiety and terror” and ordered the security forces to reactivate their military operations against the criminal gang.
The ceasefire had been agreed in December as part of the president’s plan for “total peace” in Colombia.
Its suspension is a major blow to Mr Petro’s attempt to end armed conflict.
His policy is radically different from that from his predecessor in office, Iván Duque, who tried to secure peace by stepping up military operations against Colombia’s illegal armed groups.
But progress is being made in the drug war despite this as shipment busts are being made and high profile traffickers are either being brought to justice or are offering olive branches of peace.