Colombia’s most wanted drug dealer, Dairo Antonio Usuga, also known as “Otoniel“, he has been arrested. Presidential adviser Emilio Archila praised the capture in Necocli of Dairo Antonio Usuga, aka ‘Otoniel’, head of the Gulf Clan, in a tweet. The criminal group is the most powerful of the Colombian drug traffickers.
“This is the hardest blow to drug trafficking in our country this century,” said President Ivan Duque at a press conference, stating that the arrest was “only comparable to the capture of Pablo Escobar”, the lord of the Drug killed in a police shootout in 1993. “Otoniel was the most feared drug lord in the world, a murderer of police, soldiers, local activists,” Duque said. “This is the end of the Clan Del Golfo”, added the president, inviting the other members of the criminal organization to surrender themselves or “feel the full weight of the law”.
Colombia is the world‘s leading supplier of cocaine, with the United States as the main market, despite half a century of attempts to crack down on drug trafficking. Washington had offered a $ 5 million bounty for information leading to the arrest of Otoniel, who is one of Colombia’s most feared men at the age of 50. Otoniel took over the leadership of the Gulf Clan, formerly known as the Usuga Clan, from his brother Juan de Dios, who was killed by police in 2012. The Clan is present in nearly 300 municipalities across the country, according to the independent Indepaz think tank. The organization has recently been overthrown by the police force. According to the police, the few of its members left at large were forced to hide in the jungle without phones.