A massive wave of arrests has gone down in Colombia, with authorities there claiming they've detained more than 200 members of the nation's largest drug cartel. On Monday, armed forces chief Francisco Cubides held a presser in which he disclosed that 217 members of the Gulf Clan have been arrested since April 15, while 15 suspected drug traffickers had been shot dead during various raids, including a cartel commander, per CBS News.
The arrests were partly in response to the Gulf Clan's supposed "pistol plan" to "systematically murder" Colombian security forces, in the words of Colombian President Gustavo Petro. The country's interior minister, Armando Benedetti, said at a weekly meeting of government Cabinet members that the cartel would shell out up to $3,500 to recruits to take out members of law enforcement. At least 16 police officers and five soldiers have been murdered so far, per CBS; RFI puts the total number at closer to 35.
Cubides says that the law enforcement raids also scooped up 6.8 tons of drugs, more than 120 firearms, and 15,000-plus rounds of ammo. RFI notes that the cartel's strategy "is reminiscent of the one used by drug trafficker Pablo Escobar in the 1990s, when he paid for each agent killed in his frontal assault on the state." Cubides, meanwhile, says it's a "desperate response" due to the "overwhelming" setbacks the group has suffered against police and the military in the northern and western parts of Colombia, per CBS.
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The Gulf Clan, an organization with paramilitary roots that's been designated a foreign terror group by the US and calls itself the Gaitanista Army of Colombia, has only grown stronger in recent years under Petro's purview, the nation's defense minister, Pedro Sanchez, recently conceded to AFP. Per the Latin Times, Colombian authorities have recently stepped up their efforts against the cartel, including with airstrikes. (More Colombia stories.)
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