All About Don Berna

COLOMBIA

Pablo Escobar

AUC / 30 AUG 2021

Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was the pioneer in industrial-scale cocaine trafficking.

COLOMBIA / 17 JUL 2017

The arrest of Medellín's security secretary in north Colombia has rocked the city establishment and challenged the political elite's prevailing narrative it has spent years promoting. But was he mediating…

AUC / 9 AUG 2016

By the end of 1993, Pablo Escobar was cornered. The cocaine king -- known as "El Patrón" -- was running out of money and options. His top assassins were either…

COLOMBIA / 29 JUL 2014

Extradited Colombia paramilitary leader and mafia boss Diego Fernando Murillo, alias "Don Berna," has claimed his brother fired the shot that killed infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar, adding a new…

DON BERNA / 4 OCT 2013

The Medellin mafia, fragmented through bitter infighting, has called a truce and made an agreement with their rivals the Urabeños, seeking to rebuild the criminal hegemony once enjoyed by the…

COLOMBIA / 17 NOVEMBER, 2016

Don Berna was the leader of Oficina de Envigado, a criminal group in Medellin, which grew after the fall of Pablo Escobar in Colombia.

COLOMBIA GROUPS / 2017-03-10 03:31:38

The Paisas first emerged as a rural militia that grew out of the demobilized AUC paramilitary army, with links to the Oficina de Envigado, but later…

COLOMBIA GROUPS / OCTOBER 28, 2020

The Oficina de Envigado has evolved from Pablo Escobar's debt collection agency to a complex criminal actor in Medellín.

About InSight Crime

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InSight Crime Contributes Expertise Across the Board 

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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…

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InSight Crime Cited in New Colombia Drug Policy Plan

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

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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…

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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…

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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…