HomeNewsBriefArrests Uncover Alliance Among Top Colombian Mafias
BRIEF

Arrests Uncover Alliance Among Top Colombian Mafias

COCAINE / 11 JUN 2019 BY MARÍA PAOLA MARTÍNEZ EN

Members of some of Colombia’s most notorious crime organizations teamed up to traffic about three tons of cocaine, revealing a fascinating high-profile alliance.

On June 4, authorities announced the arrests of 14 people, including members of the Los Urabeños, Oficina de Envigado, Los Pachenca and the Clan del Oriente (Eastern Clan). The first three are established Colombian groups; the Clan del Oriente is less well known. The members pacted to create a criminal network that sent sea and air cocaine shipments to Costa Rica, Panama, the Bahamas, Jamaica and Mexico. The drug was then moved to countries in North America, Europe, Oceania and Asia.

Authorities reported that the group raked in $90 million in profits and that it had links with the Italian mafia and Mexican crime groups, although the exact workings of these connections remain unclear.

SEE ALSO: Colombia News and Profiles

Members of the criminal network that now face extradition to the US on drug charges include Roberto Hernández Ossa, alias “Cambo,” an Oficina leader; Ovidio Isaza Gómez, alias “Roque,” a high-ranking member of the Gulf Clan and the son of Ramón Isaza, who was a leader in the now demobilized paramilitary force, United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC); Alba Nery Rodríguez, alias “La Gaviota,” second-in-command of the Oficina’s structure on the Atlantic Coast and companion to “Chucho Mercancía,” a leader of Los Pachenca, who was also captured.

Authorities had targeted heads of two of these groups in the past few months, having recently arrested three leaders of the Oficina and the Pachenca’s second-in-command.

InSight Crime Analysis

Collaboration among crime groups in Colombia is not new, but the particular representatives of this alliance point to possible new collaborations among high-ranking Colombian criminals.

The Urabeños has long established alliances with other crime groups. For example, the Urabeños had outsourced the guarding of drug shipments to Los Pachenca. A conflict, however, ultimately severed that relationship, showing the fragility of such unions.

News reports detail the roles of some members within the criminal network. Hernández Ossa, the high-ranking Oficina leader was in charge of finances. Isaza Gómez coordinated cocaine shipments while Karen Marledis Gallo, a member of the Urabeños known as “La Negra," facilitated the trafficking of drugs and arms among the four groups.

While there is little information about what led the groups’ members to work together on drug shipments, such alliances are often hatched because each group controls different nodes in the drug trafficking chain: coca cultivation, cocaine processing, drug shipments, money laundering, and other essential crime services. The pacts keep losses at a minimum when drugs are seized and members are arrested.

SEE MORE: For Medellín’s Oficina Capos, the Shuffle is Part of the Game

The alliances can also strengthen individual groups. The Urabeños has been suspected of seeking alliances to expand beyond Urabá, its operations center. Its position as coordinator among the various gangs and its association with the Oficina confirm that the group is looking to fortify itself after recent blows.

What is unclear, however, is what led the Oficina -- the Medellín-based crime syndicate that controls underworld activity in the city and much of the Valle de Aburrá -- to be part of this alliance, and what exactly the group is gaining from it.

share icon icon icon

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

What are your thoughts? Click here to send InSight Crime your comments.

We encourage readers to copy and distribute our work for non-commercial purposes, with attribution to InSight Crime in the byline and links to the original at both the top and bottom of the article. Check the Creative Commons website for more details of how to share our work, and please send us an email if you use an article.

Was this content helpful?

We want to sustain Latin America’s largest organized crime database, but in order to do so, we need resources.

DONATE

Related Content

COCAINE / 8 JUN 2023

Historic cocaine seizures in Sweden highlight the Nordic country's increasing role as a gateway for cocaine from Latin America to…

COCAINE / 9 JUN 2022

An ingenious Italian-Colombian sting operation has arrested dozens of people on both continents and seized a huge quantity of cocaine,…

BOLIVIA / 8 NOV 2022

The Amazon is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, where wildlife trafficking threatens hundreds of thousands of species.

About InSight Crime

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

22 SEP 2023

This week InSight Crime investigators Sara García and María Fernanda Ramírez led a discussion of the challenges posed by Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s “Total Peace” plan within urban contexts. The…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

15 SEP 2023

InSight Crime’s work on emerging coca cultivation in Honduras, Guatemala, and Venezuela was cited in the Colombian government’s…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime Discusses Honduran Women's Prison Investigation

8 SEP 2023

Investigators Victoria Dittmar and María Fernanda Ramírez discussed InSight Crime’s recent investigation of a massacre in Honduras’ only women’s prison in a Twitter Spaces event on…

THE ORGANIZATION

Human Trafficking Investigation Published in Leading Mexican Newspaper

1 SEP 2023

Leading Mexican media outlet El Universal featured our most recent investigation, “The Geography of Human Trafficking on the US-Mexico Border,” on the front page of its August 30…

THE ORGANIZATION

InSight Crime's Coverage of Ecuador Leads International Debate

25 AUG 2023

This week, Jeremy McDermott, co-director of InSight Crime, was interviewed by La Sexta, a Spanish television channel, about the situation of extreme violence and insecurity in Ecuador…