Faced with the threats issued by groups of heavily armed hooded men who patrol the streets of Buenaventura, the governor of Valle del Cauca, Clara Luz Roldán, requested the immediate militarization of the port city.
“President Gustavo Petro and Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, on behalf of Valle del Cauca, please request the militarization of the entire Special District of Buenaventura immediately,” Roldán wrote on his Twitter account.
“It is urgent to protect the community and put an end to illegal economies. Buenaventura needs the Army to arrive, occupy the entire territory, protect the community and stay,” added the Valle del Cauca president.
Hooded on video
In a video broadcast through social networks, individuals with high-caliber firearms can be seen.
It is heard in the video that they call themselves “Rover’s gang” and issue the threat of “Death to the Spartans”.
The subjects send a message according to which they are going to “defend” Buenaventura and launch threats against another band called the “Jalisco”, which would have connections in Mexico and would dispute territorial control of the port of Valle del Cauca.
“We are going to defend them with blood and fire, we are not here in Jalisco… Jalisco is in Mexico, here we are in Buenaventura,” says one of the hooded men in the video, which also specifically speaks of the Progreso neighborhoods. , Bello Horizonte, Bahía and Carlos Holmes as the sectors where they will fight the enemy gang.
offer reward
In response to the video circulating on social media, the National Police increased its presence in these areas.
Colonel Ever Yovanni Gómez Reyes, commander of the Valle Police Department, reported that they deployed forces in the territory to carry out prevention, intelligence, and judicial police activities.
In addition, actions were coordinated with the National Navy, local authorities and the Office of the Attorney General of the Nation with the aim of capturing these criminals.
Colonel Gómez Reyes stressed that a reward of up to 200 million pesos is being offered to those who provide information that helps identify and capture these people.
More criminal groups
Buenaventura is mired in a serious security crisis.
The appearance of “the Rover gang” and the “Jalisco” adds to old disputes between other criminal organizations.
The truce that was established in the second quarter of 2022 between “Shottas” and “Espartanos”, the gangs that dispute control of micro-trafficking and other illegal businesses, was broken.
This rupture reactivated the war with greater intensity and cruelty, endangering the efforts to establish a laboratory of “total peace” in this city.
The agreed truce lasted five months from September 2022.