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The recent seizure of half a ton of cocaine in Puerto Concordia, south of that department, evidenced that the Second Marquetalia contacted old Farc chips to buy cocaine and sell it to Mexican cartels and European mafias.
In the constant fight for the corridors of cocaine trafficking in Colombia, the dissidents of the Second Marquetalia (the armed group that took up arms in August 2019, led by alias Iván Márquez) have remained in constant movement to extend their tentacles throughout the country in order not to be left behind with respect to other criminal groups competing to take over the lucrative business. A recent seizure by the Police Anti-Narcotics Directorate revealed how the men who turned their backs on the Peace Agreement are already moving in the Eastern Plains to begin to gain ground from the First Front of Gentil Duarte’s dissidents, who withdrew from the talks since July 2016.
El Espectador learned details of that operation, which occurred on December 7 in Puerto Concordia, a municipality in southern Meta that borders another that is considered one of the bastions of the dissidents of Gentil Duarte: San José del Guaviare. Members of the Police received information from a demobilized from the Farc, through a call to the anti-drug line 167, about the location of a cache of half a ton of cocaine that was going to be sold to aliases Romagna, one of the members of the Second Marquetalia (along with Santrich and the Paisa) that was designated to expand its drug trafficking structures as one of the ways to finance the criminal group.
Apparently Ivan Marquez, head of the Second Marquetalia, delegated to Romagna the task of entering Guaviare and Meta, an area considered the center of operations for this dissidence. Henry Castellanos or Romagna He is a seasoned guerrilla from the Eastern bloc of the disappeared guerrilla, who for decades made the La Macarena mountain range one of its main rearguards. “The difficulty of entering with his criminal organization directly to the Llanos made him look for another strategy: to enter through drug traffickers allies, who continue to pay the grammage to Gentil Duarte, but they sell the entire drug to Marquez so that it strengthens its alliances with Mexican and European cartels ”, says a police official. (Also read: On the trail of police allied with drug traffickers and leakage of confidential information)
The researchers were able to establish that the cocaine came from at least three laboratories located in Guaviare and Meta, where an experienced chemist close to Romagna, known in the criminal world by the alias of Cusumbo. Likewise, it was learned that the collection and transportation of cargo to Venezuela, through Arauca, are under the responsibility of aliases The Yola, one of Romagna’s main contacts for drug trafficking. This woman keeps a bond of several years with the Farc, since it facilitated the installation of laboratories on their properties in Uribe, Meta. She hid for decades from the authorities under the facade of a prosperous cattle ranch in the region, police say.
As this newspaper revealed last October, there are strong clashes between Ivan Marquez and Gentil Duarte by absorbing the residual structures that are settled in key regions in the production of cocaine and its transport. The Police indicate that there is a war to the death in the areas that they aspire to as Putumayo, Nariño, Catatumbo and Cauca. With this seizure it is also known that aliases the Paisa He was not the only one designated to assemble the drug trafficking scaffolding. This dissident leader, who was in charge of the feared mobile column Teófilo Forero of the Farc, managed to agree an alliance with people from La Constru in Putumayo, the organization of narco-paramilitary origin that was born in 2006 as a collection office in the south and west from the country.
The Paisa also forged an alliance with the 48th front of the dissidents, entering into a dispute with the Carolina Ramírez structure, aligned with the Primero Gentil Duarte front. Alias el Paisa, according to state security agencies, maintains contacts with foreign drug traffickers, who buy drugs in the middle of the production area at a price that benefits everyone. In addition, they take 30% of the profits from shipments abroad, according to the investigation of the Police Antinarcotics. This investigation has also determined that Romaña handles the operational part of drug trafficking in the Second Marquetalia: from clandestine tracks in Venezuelan territory to the alignment of criminal structures in Nariño that want to ally themselves.
About the routes of Marquez It has been identified that if the drug is destined for Europe, the Caquetá River is used, which links the cocaine production centers in Caquetá and Putumayo, connecting directly to Brazil. In Brazilian territory, it joins the Amazon River, which, through staggered transportation (at points already established by the dissidents), traces an exit route to the Atlantic Ocean. When the cocaine caches are destined for Central America – to then be sent to the US -, they transfer it from Putumayo to Ecuadorian territory by land to the cities of Manta and Esmeraldas, where the drug is shipped in speedboats or containers. (You may be interested: They capture alias “Álvaro Boyaco”, financial chief of the “Gentil Duarte” dissidence)
Runways have been identified in the Venezuelan state of Apure, which are used for the departure of aircraft to Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, with shipments ranging between 700 and 1,200 kilos of cocaine. Its main foreign allies are the Mexican cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación and the First Capital Command in Brazil. The latter, according to the portal Insight Crime, is a criminal organization made up of prisoners who organized groups to defend themselves in the violent prison system in Brazil. It emerged in São Paulo in the 1990s and has fought a bloody battle for dominance throughout the country. It is believed to be the largest and most organized criminal group in Brazil.
Last November, Márquez’s dissidence lost one of its men destined to operate in eastern Venezuela: Olivio Iván Merchán, alias Loco Iván, killed during a Venezuelan military operation in the municipality of Angostura de Bolívar, eastern Venezuela and border with Brazil. During 2020, La Segunda Marquetalia also lost two other key pieces in its plan to gain ground from criminal groups in drug trafficking. In July alias Ariel and Hermes were captured, who were in charge of managing the illegal businesses of the structure in the north of Antioquia and south of Huila, respectively.
