HomeNewsBriefArrests Show International Reach of Bogota Gangs
BRIEF

Arrests Show International Reach of Bogota Gangs

COLOMBIA / 11 MAR 2013 BY MICHAEL TATONE AND JAMES BARGENT EN

Revelations that a Bogota drug gang had international criminal contacts across the Americas and in Europe illustrate the increasing role that local groups play in international organized crime.

Earlier in the week, police arrested the two leaders of a Bogota gang known as the Cordillera, Oscar Alcantara Gonzalez, alias "Mosco," and Cesar Gonzalez Diaz, alias "Homero."

According to prosecutors, the gang has a tight grip on criminal activities in the sector of Bogota known as El Bronx, the center of microtrafficking in the city, and is thought to be responsible for close to 30 murders in the capital in recent years.

Prosecutors also said the gang had formed a pact with Colombian trafficking group the Rastrojos to assassinate police officers in the capital, reportedly offering an $11,000 bounty for each officer killed.

The gang also operated in Quito, Ecuador -- where Mosco had been located since 2010 -- controlling micro-trafficking in the city's La Mariscal tourist district, reported EFE. The gang also had criminal connections in Spain, Peru and Costa Rica, according to El Espectador.

The Cordillera's activities brought in between $40,000 and $100,000 a day in Bogota, and $20,000 a day in Quito, according to various estimates from the Colombian and Ecuadorean authorities.

InSight Analysis

While it remains unclear exactly what activities the Cordillera gang were involved in outside of Bogota and Quito, it should come as no surprise that an ostensibly local group has international contacts, nor that it is forming pacts with more powerful Colombian international trafficking groups.

Local gangs often play a substantial ground-level role in international organized crime around the Americas, with many transnational and national groups employing or co-opting them as hitmen, money collectors, protection for drug shipments and street level drug distributors.

A prime example of this relationship is in Medellin, where local gangs known as "combos" have long provided a supply of foot soldiers for larger organizations with international interests. Since the dominant Medellin mafia, the Oficina de Envigado, started to weaken and fragment in 2008, many combos have become more independent, diversifying revenue streams and looking for their own criminal connections. Some have outgrown the "combo" label and are now referred to as "super combos."

This trend is likely to be reflected across the region in the near future as monolithic cartel-like structures fragment and their centralized hierarchical control weakens -- a process long seen in Colombia and currently underway in much of Mexico. With this fragmentation, localized, independent gangs such as the Cordillera are likely to play an increasingly significant role, either partnering bigger organizations as they do with the Rastrojos, or managing their own national and international networks.

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

COLOMBIA / 25 OCT 2021

Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias “Otoniel,” was the most-wanted man in Colombia. His arrest was seen as so significant that a…

COLOMBIA / 25 FEB 2022

A veteran FARC dissident commander was killed in a Colombian military assault, leaving a power vacuum in the volatile Colombia-Venezuela…

BRAZIL / 26 JUL 2022

Indigenous communities in Brazil are using drones to fight deforestation and the frequent assaults of loggers on their lands.

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…