Bogota | One of the alleged heirs of “Otoniel,” the leader of Colombia’s most powerful drug cartel, was found dead in the north-west of the country on Wednesday, a police official said.
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“We found a body that we fingerprinted,” Colonel Oscar Cortes said in a video sent to the media.
The body discovered on a street has been identified as that of Wilmar Antonio Quiroz, aka “Siopas”, number two of the AGC (Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) organization, also known as Clan del Golfo, the official added.
“Siopas” and two other suspected criminals, “Chiquito Malo” and “Gonzalito,” are being considered by Colombian authorities as the successors to Dairo Antonio Usuga, aka “Otoniel,” the leader of the Clan del Golfo extradited to the United States last year .
Colombian police are offering a $1.2 million reward for any information leading to the whereabouts of any of these three leaders.
Colonel Cortes did not specify the cause of death of “Siopas,” whose body was found three kilometers from the town of Dazuba, the clan’s historic stronghold. “We are investigating the motives behind the crime,” he said.
According to him, “Siopas” directed all the clan’s operations in the department of Choco (west) and on the Colombian Pacific coast. According to the authorities, the AGC, which has around 3,000 members, has a bloody rivalry with the National Liberation Army (ELN) for control of drug trafficking routes in these regions.
“Otoniel,” the organization’s former leader, pleaded guilty to international cocaine trafficking in a New York court in January. He will hear his verdict in July and faces life imprisonment.
His extradition in May 2022, seven months after his arrest in Colombia, was followed by a bloody campaign to assassinate police officers in his country. But in August 2022, after left-wing President Gustavo Petro was elected Colombia’s head of state in favor of negotiations with several armed groups, “Otoniel” called on his gang to put an end to this wave of murders.
Since then, AGC leaders have sought to capitalize on President Petro’s so-called “total peace policy,” aimed at finding a compromise between the government and the various armed organizations.