In early April, the Colombian Military Forces thwarted the activities of criminal gangs Jaime Martínez and Comandos de Frontera, dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC, in Spanish), in two operations carried out in Valle del Cauca department and in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
On April 10, the Colombian Navy reported in a statement that, during a combined operation, Colombian Navy units and the Brazilian Civil Police seized 1,800 kilograms of marijuana on a fishing vessel in a rural area of the Tefé municipality, in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.
The vessel, with a crew of three Brazilian nationals, was traveling on the Solimões River when authorities intercepted it. During the boat inspection, security forces found a hideout containing packages of creepy marijuana, the Navy said.
“This marijuana comes from [the Colombian department of] Cauca. They transfer it across the mountain and begin to mobilize it on the Putumayo River. There are several points for this marijuana toward the Peruvian sector; one is Puerto Ospina [in the Colombian department of Putumayo], where the organized armed group Comandos de Frontera is based. It recruits children; it also recruits indigenous people and peasants to transfer it […] to Peruvian territory,” Marine Corps Brigadier General Guillermo Arturo Castellanos Ojeda, commander of the Colombian Navy’s Southern Naval Force, told the press. “Once in Peru, they put it on the Napo River, and it later reaches the Amazon River.”
On April 7, the Colombian Army and the Office of the Attorney General’s Technical Investigation Corps seized 1,670 kg of cocaine hydrochloride in the Jamundí municipality, Valle del Cauca department, the Army reported in a statement.
“During this interagency operation, we carried out five raids and seized 1.6 tons of cocaine hydrochloride, which were packed and ready for distribution,” Army Brigadier General Juan Carlos Correa Consuegra, head of the Command Against Drug Trafficking and Transnational Threats (CONAT, in Spanish), told the press. “In addition to this drug seizure, agents also captured five individuals, eight handguns, and cash.”
Those captured were part of the criminal group Jaime Martínez, a FARC dissident group, the Army reported.
“These people will be brought to a supervisory judge to be charged with the crimes of aggravated trafficking, manufacture, or possession of narcotics, and trafficking, manufacture, or possession of weapons, accessories, parts, or ammunition,” said Gustavo Alfredo Montaña Montoya, sectional director of the Cauca Prosecutor’s Office.
