Colombian Police arrested at the José María Córdova International Airport in Medellín, a member of the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, accused of “paying drug shipments to Colombian drug traffickers” and who is wanted for extradition by the United States.
(See here: The Secretary of Government of a Colombian municipality who led a gang of ‘narcos’)
“This Mexican citizen, wanted for extradition by the Court of the Eastern District of Wisconsin (USA), is accused of the crime of conspiracy to launder monetary instruments,” police said in a statement on Wednesday.
Ángel Josué Velázquez Bravo would be responsible for paying drug shipments to Colombian drug traffickers and had sent more than $11 million from the United States to the cities of Cali, Medellín and Cúcuta between 2021 and today, through Mexico.
He is also the husband of a niece of Rafael Caro Quintero, a historic Mexican drug trafficker nicknamed “the drug lord of drug lords” in the 1980s and founder of the Guadalajara cartel, who was recaptured in 2022 for extradition fines.
The director general of the National Police, General William René Salamanca Ramírez, highlighted that this capture is a direct result of effective cooperation with U.S. federal agencies as part of the frontal offensive against drug trafficking.
(Read more: How the Albanian mafia operates in Latin America and how far does its impact reach?)
In Colombia, according to a report published last year by the UN, the demobilization of the FARC led to an increase in the presence of Mexican groups, especially the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).
Representatives of these cartels collaborate with FARC dissidents to export cocaine shipments from areas of Colombia near the Pacific, the report said.
EFE