The arrests were made after six months of intelligence work, which left enough evidentiary material to issue the arrest warrants.
Thanks to the inter-agency work carried out by the National Army and the Attorney General's Office, under the Meta Seguro campaign, it was possible to capture by judicial order 10 women identified as members of Las Juanas structure, a group at the service of the organized armed group, GAO, Clan del Golfo.
Military operations were carried out in the municipalities of Acacías, Granada, San Carlos de Guaroa, San Martín, Villavicencio, Meta and in the municipality of La Virginia, Risaralda, where units of the Military Gaula (Anti-Extortion and Anti-Kidnapping Group) Meta, of the seventh Brigade, and its component of CTI (Technical Investigations Corps), arrived to find and capture these women.
They would be responsible for claiming and collecting money from extortion. They were contacted by alleged recruiters through extortion calls made from the prison by alias Juanito, ringleader of this structure.
The victims were usually service stations owners, ranchers and traders in the region, who were demanded to give large sums of money in exchange for not attacking their businesses, their lives or that of their families.
These persons were put into custody of the authority for the crime of extortion. After the respective judicial process they were put in house-by-prison.
With this important result, the illicit activities of this structure are severely hit, which reduces the criminal activity of this organization, and prevents civilians from continuing to be victims of these criminal acts.
Source: National Army News Agency