His arrest is something of a boost for the conservative Duque who law and order rhetoric has been no match for soaring production of cocaine. In 2017, he showed his face for the first time on occasion of Pope Francis’ visit to the country, publishing a video in which he asked for his group be allowed to lay down its weapons and demobilise as part of the country’s peace process with the much larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. As he defied authorities his legend as a bandit grew alongside the horror stories told by Colombian authorities of the many underage women he and his cohorts allegedly abused sexually.īut the war was taking its toll on the 50-year-old fugitive, who even while on the run insisted on sleeping on orthopedic mattresses to ease a back injury. Leaks and a network of rural safe houses he supposedly moved among every night allowed him for years to resist a scorchedearth campaign by the military against the Gulf Clan. He refused to disarm when that militia signed a peace treaty with the government in 2006, instead delving deeper into Colombia’s criminal underworld and setting up operations in the strategic Gulf of Uraba region in northern Colombia, a major drug corridor surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean sea on either side.

He and his brother, who was killed in a raid in 2012, got their start as gunmen for the now defunct leftist guerrilla group known as the Popular Liberation Army and then later switched sides and joined the rebels battlefield enemies, a right wing paramilitary group.

Usuga for years flew under the radar of authorities by eschewing the high profile of Colombia’s better known narcos. Later indictments in Brooklyn and Miami federal courts accused him of importing into the US at least 73 metric tons of cocaine between 20 through countries including Venezuela Guatemala Mexico Panama and Honduras.īut like many of his gunmen he’s also cycled through the ranks of several guerrilla groups most recently claiming to lead the Gaitanist Self Defense Forces of Colombia after a mid-20th century Colombian leftist firebrand.Īuthorities said intelligence provided by the US and UK led more than 500 soldiers and members of Colombia’s special forces to Usuga’s jungle hideout which was protected by eight rings of security. He was first indicted in 2009 in Manhattan federal court on narcotics charges and for allegedly providing assistance to a far right paramilitary group designated a terrorist organisation by the US government.

He’s long been a fixture on the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s most wanted fugitives list for whose capture it had been offering a 5 million reward. Take a look at | 5 overnight developments from around the globe

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