Venezuela’s ONA Arrested Colombia's “Most Wanted” Drug Trafficker
Officers of the Venezuelan National Anti-Drugs Office (ONA) arrested a
prominent Colombian drug dealer, Nelson Orlando Buitrago Parada, aka
"Caballo," on Saturday. According to Venezuela’s minister for justice and
internal affairs, Tareck El Aissami, Buitriago has been involved, together with
his father and brother, "in several murders" and in "an
important network of narco-paramilitarism" operating in Colombian plains. El Aissami made the announcement on Monday during an interview with a
local radio station.
"We arrested another Colombian drug trafficker for whom INTERPOL
had issued a red alert on Saturday night in Anzoategui state (eastern Venezuela),
specifically in the town El Tigre," the minister said. Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said Buitrago was one of the
country’s “most wanted paramilitary leaders” and is accused of murder,
kidnapping, and drug trafficking. He was a leader with the United Self
Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), an umbrella group for various
right-wing paramilitary groups set up to fight Marxist guerrillas in the
1990s. Most blocs of the AUC have since demobilised but some have carried on
and became heavily involved in drug-trafficking.
“[Buitrago] played the leading role in one of the bloodiest wars in the
Western Plains and left hundreds, perhaps thousands of victims,” Santos said.
Santos formally
thanked the Venezuelan government for the capture and said Buitrago, along with
his brother, who was also recently captured, will be taken to Colombia this
Thursday.
On 24 January, when the ONA celebrated its sixth anniversary, El Aissami
remarked that Venezuelan police and military bodies had arrested 76 heads and
members of different international drug trafficking organizations so far, not
including Buitrago.These have been handed over to the justice systems of the
countries which request it, including Colombia,
United States, France, Italy,
Netherlands,
among others.
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