A NOTORIOUS ex-paramilitary leader accused by authorities of drug trafficking and gun running was arrested early on Wednesday in the northern Colombian jungle, capping a months-long pursuit.
The detention of Daniel Rendon Herrera (43), described by police as Colombia’s “most wanted criminal”, could well set off a violent power struggle within the illicit drug world. The extradition to the US of alleged trafficker Diego Murillo last May set off a battle in Medellin that has left dozens dead.
Known as Don Mario, Rendon was arrested near the Caribbean port city of Turbo. The operation involved 250 members of the elite “Yunglas” undercover anti-narcotics police, some of whom posed as Holy Week tourists. Police had been tracking Rendon for nine months and found him “living like a dog, eating rice with his hands”, police colonel Cesar Augusto Pinzon said.
Rendon had a $2 million bounty on his head in Colombia and has been indicted for drug trafficking in a US federal court for allegedly smuggling 100 tonnes of cocaine, defence minister Juan Manuel Santos said at a military airport in Bogota where Rendon was flown earlier under guard.
“Don Mario” is the brother of Freddie Rendon, alias “The German,” the now imprisoned paramilitary ally of the late Carlos Castano, founder of the Colombian Auto-Defence Corps in the 1980s. The militias were set up by farmers and cattlemen to defend against left-wing guerrillas, but many morphed into drug trafficking and land grabbing mafias.
Unlike most paramilitary commanders and the 31,000 fighters who accepted the Colombian government’s 2003 demobilisation programme, Rendon maintained a militia numbering in the hundreds. He built a drug trafficking empire that focused on controlling the Gulf of Uraba area on Colombia’s northern Caribbean coast, a prime launch area for cocaine bound for North America.
He also managed a thriving arms trade, according to police who last year seized more than 350 assault rifles that Rendon allegedly had purchased.
In a raid last August of a Rendon arsenal, authorities seized 140,000 rounds of ammunition, the largest illegal munitions cache found in Colombia.
Rendon had hundreds of assassins under his control, paid his minions a bonus of $1,200 for each policeman killed and ruthlessly forced poor farmers and peasants from their lands in areas where he wanted untrammelled control of drug trafficking routes, police said.
Colombian national police commander Oscar Naranjo said that Rendon’s henchmen were responsible for more than 3,000 killings in recent years.
The capture comes as President Barack Obama and the US Congress are considering whether to continue current funding levels of Plan Colombia, the US programme to combat terrorism and illegal drugs. – (LA Times-Washington Post service)