Authorities have seized 6.4 tons of drugs in Colombia's Pacific port of Buenaventura, the largest seizure of 2010. Police stated the cocaine is the property of Daniel Barrera, alias "Loco Barrera," and his allies, the group known as the Rastrojos.
The drugs were found in 991 vacuum-packed packages in a container of canvas ready to be exported, bearing at least three different markings: a puma, the Visa credit card symbol and a crescent moon, suggesting it was a pooled shipment from various different traffickers. The shipment was due to be sent to the United States.
General Cesar Augusto Pinzon, head of the Anti-Narcotics Police, told El Espectador newspaper that the drugs were a joint venture between Loco Barrera and the brothers "Comba,' Luis Enrique Calle Serna, alias 'Comba,' and Javier Antonio Calle Serna, alias "El Doctor."
These two organizations are now working together across Colombia and have been linked to the Popular Revolutionary Antiterrorist Army of Colombia (ERPAC), whose leader, Pedro Guerrero Castillo, alias "Cuchillo," died during a police operation over Christmas.
This represents a criminal alliance involving the majority of the big drug trafficking groups in Colombia. The only major group opposed to them is the Urabeños.
The relative harmony in the criminal underworld is compounded by the fact that all the major groups have working relationships with the Marxist rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
The government's recent success against them may have pushed these illegal armies to unite in their interests to protect drug crops and resist the advance of the state.
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