What is behind the millionaire cove they found in Cali?

The capture in a luxurious home in Cali of the noted drug trafficker Lucio Burbano Portilla, who found a cove with $ 8,700 million, confirms that the capital of the Valley is the safe haven for the leaders of illegal organizations that operate throughout the Colombian Pacific.

According to the information obtained by El País, Burbano Portilla had been living in Cali for several years, but its main center of operations was the municipality of Tumaco, in the Pacific of Nariño.

There he began as a meat and refrigerator merchant and at the end of the 90s he was one of the key men for the entry of the self-defense groups in that area of ​​the country.

By then Burbano Portilla was working as an employee of the Maritime and Port Directorate of Tumaco, in the grade of specialist first, and contributed short arms, motorcycles and logistical material for the group that was initially commanded by the former paramilitary chief Horacio de Jesús Mejía, alias Cold broth.

Also read: Money from a cove found in Cali should be used for social investment, councilors propose

This was confirmed by the paramilitary chief himself during a submission hearing before the Transitional Justice in 2004, in which he revealed that alias El Señor, as Burbano is known, made contributions so that the paramilitaries, at that time the Libertadores del Front South, will provide “security to the people.”

The paramilitary Horacio de Jesús Mejía acknowledged that in order to enter Nariño, he first arrived in Cali in 1999 accompanied by ten boys from Caucasia (Antioquia) to create the self-defense groups in Nariño and that it was Burbano who gave him handguns legally purchased in the Brigade and with their respective safe-conduct, but also provided illegal weapons.

The Libertadores del Sur front focused its operations on the assassination of militiamen and members of guerrilla groups and in 2000 it was absorbed by the Central Bolívar Bloc, under the command of Carlos Mario Jiménez (‘Macaco’).

Burbano Portilla had already been the subject of a domain forfeiture process in which 143 real estate assets, 9 commercial establishments and a financial entity were seized, amounting to an approximate value of US $ 30 million, according to the Congressional Gazette dated 30 July 2008.

Wandering among illegals

After the demobilization of the paramilitary groups, the power of drug trafficking in the regions remained exclusively in the guerrilla organizations and Burbano Portilla guaranteed its continuity in the business together with the Oliver Sinisterra column.

In this way, the drug trafficking in his organization was carried out through the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, where the drug was taken.

General Giovanni Ponce Parra, National Director of Anti-Drug Investigation of the Ecuadorian Police, pointed out that in this joint operation, in which the Ecuadorian Prosecutor’s Office also participated, “seven raids were carried out in the province of Esmeraldas, achieving the arrest of three Ecuadorians, one Colombians and twelve cell phones ”.

“Simultaneously, ten raids were carried out in Colombia in the departments of Valle del Cauca and Nariño, achieving the seizure of 2.5 tons of drugs, two speedboats, two vehicles, ten detainees and the cove in Cali with more than $ 8,000 million”, General Ponce said.

The Ecuadorian authorities added that the Burbano Portilla organization “had links with the Mexican cartel of Sinaloa and with the residual organized armed groups of the Farc guerrilla Oliver Sinisterra and the Los Contadores armed group for the passage of alkaloid through their territories.

For his part, the attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, added that in the operation against this organization, ten people were arrested and watches and jewelry were also found.

The Prosecutor’s Office indicated that the drugs were collected in Tumaco and then taken by boat to Pampanal de Bolívar, in Ecuador, and then shipped to Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States.

Council Order

The conservative caucus asked the Mayor’s Office to make arrangements for the money found in the cove to be used for the security of the city.

“It cannot continue to happen that Cali puts the dead and is affected by all the negative effects of drug trafficking, and that when mafia stalls are found, the resources do not stay in the city, generating the public investment necessary to reduce the gaps in the insecurity and poverty, “said Fernando Tamayo.