Friday 21 June 2013

Suspected gangsters, extortionists held around Colombia

Several suspects thought involved in organised crime and extortion were reported detained in Colombia in recent days, including six members of one of the main national gangs the Rastrojos, while authorities found an explosives cache thought to belong to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). In San Martín in the department of Meta south of Bogotá, police detained a suspected member of Los Rastrojos sought by Interpol and likely to be charged with criminal conspiracy, the Ministry of Defence reported on 21 June. Police anti-extortion units (Gaula) arrested five other members of this gang in Soledad, a district next to the northern port of Barranquilla, suspected of coordinating extortion in that district and elsewhere in the department of Atlántico, Caracol radio reported on 21 June. Earlier President Juan Manuel Santos ordered the head of the anti-extortion police to work from Barranquilla, in an apparent response to a surge in extortions in parts of that district. This was apparently affecting bus drivers and stall owners in particular, the Presidential office reported on 19 June. General Humberto Guatibonza Carreño "is going to come and work here in Barranquilla and in Cartagena until this problem is totally resolved," the President was cited as saying after a security meeting in Barranquilla. In southern Bogotá police arrested six or more members of an extortion gang that worked around the capital's main wholesale market Corabastos, the Defence Ministry reported on 20 June. The gang reportedly forced "more than 100" street vendors and dairy products distributors to pay every day the equivalent of between 2.5 USD and five USD to avoid being robbed or beaten. In the department of Cauca in western Colombia, Police confiscated grenades and bullets found in the locality of Cerro Manuel in the district of Timbiquí, and thought to belong to Front 29 of the FARC, Bogotá's Radio Santa Fe reported on 20 June.

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