In La Guajira, a violent culture has taken root that exceeds any limit, wars between clans and conflict resolution in the most primary way that exists, killing; a way of life that has served as inspiration for the production of scripts for films and documentaries. But since the time of the marimba, the region was penetrated by illicit businesses and evolved with the economy and society, a sample of this is the Daza clan, originally from San Juan del Cesar; a family gang, who began with the theft of cars and robberies on the roads of the town, which later moved to Barranquilla where they created a criminal empire, for more than 25 years they managed drug trafficking, extortion, hit men, collection office and everything that produces illegal income.
As was foreseeable, they would perfect their habits and achieve a sophisticated and complex business, also promoting wars between criminal gangs that have bathed Barranquilla in blood, where they have fallen one by one, all murdered in Barranquilla. The boss was Gaby Daza, who began as the preferred hitman of Alberto Orlández Gamboa, alias ‘Caracol’, head of the Costa Cartel, after the extradition of Mono Abello in 1989. Gaby Daza was shot on June 2, 2011. in the street 82 with race 49C. But before, from the same clan, they had fallen: Luis Eduardo Daza Amaya, in 2003; then Roberto Daza Mejía, Gaby’s brother, in the El Recreo neighborhood, in 2005; Years later, in 2011, in 82B with 75B, Víctor Daza Mejía, another of Gaby’s brothers, was also murdered.
But the streak of deaths did not stop there, in 2014, Giany Luis Daza and Néfer Barros Daza, Gaby’s nephews and heirs to the clan’s power, fell. In 2015, the turn was for Tomás ‘Chito’ Daza, murdered in Sabanalarga. Then, the Vega Daza assumed command, who maintained confrontations with the Curicheros, a well-known gang of Marcos Figueroa, alias ‘Marquitos’, in this war for power by blood and fire, they perpetrated the assassination attack against Alias “Toyo” Curiche, in the 93 Shopping Center, north of the city. But the Curicheros responded to this attack, in 2018, with an attack against Ronald and Roberto Carlos Vega Daza, in a park in Altos de Riomar, but both were only injured.
The Vega Daza were acquiring enormous power, rattling around in La Guajira, extorting buses and gas stations, kidnapping businessmen, having a network of “daily pay” and all kinds of illegal activities, and they formed an alliance with Digno Palomino, another dangerous criminal, who in turn they were at war with Castor, another dangerous delinquent; They also murdered Libardo Parra, another drug trafficker who returned from serving a sentence in the US.
In short, they forged a large-scale crime enterprise, in complicity with the authorities who preferred to look the other way. However, the previous week the story of the Vega Dazas ended, in a cinematographic attack against the last members of the clan, the boss Rafael ‘Kike’ Vega Cuello and his sons Ronald Iván, Ray (dead) and Roberto Vega (injured). This end originated after the macabre drug party in Puerto Colombia, where Jhonatan Ospino, a member of the Venezuelan drug cartel Walid Makled, was killed; The Ospinos swore revenge and organized a pool with several gangsters, tired of the Vega Dazas, they raised more than 5,000 million pesos, the objective was to assassinate the 4 members of the family, they could not leave any of them alive and it was like that later After devising several alternatives, they decided to hire mercenaries to assault them in the house and thus take them by surprise.
The operation to carry out the plan was calculated to the millimeter, they bought the police from the sector and with drones they watched the house for more than a month; On the day of the attack, in an adjoining shopping center, they broke a roof and entered the Vega Daza residence with long weapons through the patio. It was an attack that shook Barranquilla, where it is said that the rivals celebrated with fireworks, they had finally delivered the big blow. What is clear, for all those who plan to continue on this criminal path, is that crime does not pay and always takes its toll, an entire family ended up behind nothing, painful from every point of view. @JACOBOSOLANOC
By: JACOB SOLANO C.