During the operation, four other alleged members of this criminal organization, including three men and one woman, were arrested.
During a coordinated and interagency operation conducted by the Colombian Navy, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation and INTERPOL of the National Police and the Attorney General's Office, the individual known as alias Zarco, alleged ringleader of the Organized Armed Group, GAO, Clan del Golfo, who was wanted by the judicial authorities for the alleged crime of association to commit aggravated crimes and being responsible for coordinating the shipment of large quantities of narcotics to the coasts of the United States and Central America, was arrested.
The operation took place in the vicinity of Río San Juan, approximately 60 kilometers north of the municipality of Buenaventura, on the border of the departments of Valle del Cauca and Chocó. The intelligence work carried out by the Military Forces led to the identification of the place where this individual was, making effective the arrest warrant against him. The decisiveness with which the operation was carried out led to the arrest alias Zarco without any loss to the civilians, the individuals, or troops of the Military Forces units.
Along with alias Zarco, four alleged members of this criminal organization who were part of its security component were arrested, and four firearms, a pistol and a revolver, were found by troops.
Alias Zarco is accused to be the ringleader pf the financial substructure Baudó of the GAO Clan del Golfo, in addition to be the coordinator of the activities of drug trafficking made by this gang in the sector of the central Pacific region, in the same way, he would be in charge of coordinating criminal operations against the ELN as part of the confrontation that these two criminal organizations have engaged for the control of the illicit activities in the central region of the Pacific ocean, which have caused fear, confinement and displacement in the ethnic communities living in the region.
Juan Carlos Chaverra Chala, known as alias Zarco has a criminal experience of more than 13 years, in which he was part of the gang's hitmen group of Los Rastrojos and in 2007, he was head of the GAO Clan del Golfo in the area of Puerto Meluk, municipality of Bajo Baudó, Department of Chocó, and currently he would be in charge of leading the expansionist intentions of this gang in the central Pacific.
With this result, the criminal interference of the GAO Clan del Golfo in the central Pacific region, as well as its expansion intentions, will be hit, as well as its capacity to coerce civilian. Children, young people and adolescents of the area, and members of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities, who are recruited illegally and used by this gang, will be protected.
Source: press-Colombian Navy
