Bogotá (AFP) – Following an unexpected meeting of minds between presidents Donald Trump and Gustavo Petro, three Colombian drug kingpins find themselves the target of a joint US-Colombia manhunt. They are leaders of three criminal groups at the heart of a six-decade-old conflict that continues to sow misery with drone and bomb attacks, shootouts, and kidnappings of minors to be used as child soldiers. All wanted in the United States, the men operate clandestinely.
Here is what we know:
– **’Chiquito Malo’** – Jobanis de Jesus Avila, alias “Chiquito Malo” — which translates to “Little Bad Boy” — took command of the Gulf Clan, Colombia’s largest criminal group, in October 2021. That month, his predecessor Dairo Antonio Usuga, alias “Otoniel,” was captured in a mega-operation considered one of the biggest blows to Colombian organized crime since Pablo Escobar was killed in 1993. After Otoniel was extradited to the United States and sentenced to 45 years in prison, Chiquito Malo emerged victorious from an internal leadership struggle and set about transforming the Gulf Clan.
The cartel had grown out of the paramilitary movement that emerged in the 1990s to fight Marxist guerrilla groups that had taken up arms against the state two decades earlier in rural areas. It is engaged in the cocaine trade, illegal gold mining, and people smuggling. As a younger man, Chiquito Malo had belonged to a paramilitary group from which he defected after it agreed to lay down arms in an agreement with the government in 2004. He is a “technocrat,” according to analyst Elizabeth Dickinson of the International Crisis Group think tank. “He thinks like a businessman and his leadership…succeeded in consolidating and expanding the business,” she told AFP.
Two supposed rivals have since died: a man known as “Siopas” was found shot dead on a highway in 2023, and “Gonzalito” drowned recently in a boat accident. One known photo of Chiquito Malo shows him sporting a shaved head and an elegant suit. His inclusion on the Trump-Petro hit list led the Gulf Clan to suspend peace talks with the government that started in Qatar five months ago.
– **Ivan Mordisco** – When the Marxist-inspired FARC guerrilla army signed a peace agreement in 2016, Nestor Gregorio Vera, alias “Ivan Mordisco,” was a mid-level commander in the Amazon jungle. He was legendary for his weapons skills, a former comrade once told AFP, but had little power. After opting out of the peace pact, he became one of Colombia’s biggest criminals, leading a band of so-called dissidents engaged in cocaine trafficking and illicit destruction of the jungle for cattle ranching. He is now the leader of the Central General Staff (EMC) dissident group and Colombia’s most wanted man. Bogota has issued a reward for about $1 million for his capture.
In April 2023, Mordisco made his only known public appearance: arriving in a luxury bulletproof SUV at a secluded jungle area to announce the start of peace talks that subsequently failed. At the event, he wore dark glasses and camouflage fatigues, brandished an Israeli-made rifle, and shouted revolutionary slogans.
– **Pablito** – Gustavo Anibal Giraldo, who goes by “Pablito” — which translates to “Little Pablo” — is considered a hardliner in the so-called National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrilla group. He commanded its Domingo Lain front, one of the most brutal and wealthiest factions operating along Colombia’s border with Venezuela. Now third in the ELN’s chain of seniority, he is “one of the foremost commanders of the ELN with broad authority over ELN troops in Colombia and Venezuela,” the Insight Crime think tank says in an article with a photo of Giraldo sporting a thick moustache and military beret.
He was opposed to peace talks, but nonetheless traveled to Havana in 2018 to meet with government negotiators. The talks collapsed a year later after a car bomb was detonated at a military school in Bogota, killing 23. Pablito was accused of ordering the attack.
© 2024 AFP
