The Spanish authorities, in collaboration with Colombian intelligence and Interpol, have arrested in Gandía (Valencia) the Colombian Diego Marín, known as 'Pitufo' or 'Papá Smurf', leader of a criminal organization that is believed to control 80% of smuggling in Colombia, as reported by Colombian president Gustavo Petro in a press conference.
"This person is the head of a huge criminal association that includes people who are within the State, in political life and in general in crime in Colombia dedicated to most of the smuggling in the country," Petro explained this Friday in Press conference.
Petro himself spoke with the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, when Colombian Intelligence managed to locate him so that the Police and the Spanish Civil Guard could help him arrest him: "I asked for his collaboration, we had located him but he had not yet been captured and thank you That collaboration led to his capture today."
"What has been presented today is basically the largest operation in the history of Colombia against smuggling," alleged the president, who explained that "smuggling in Colombia is the other side of drug trafficking, the way cocaine exported is converted into Colombian pesos".
'Smurf' will be sent to Colombia, according to the Colombian president, who asked him to "tell the whole truth, to confess all his political relationships with state officials."
This is the second major blow against smuggling in Colombia in a month, since in mid-March the Prosecutor's Office and the Police announced that they had dismantled the largest gang dedicated to smuggling in the country, accused of being responsible for the entry of merchandise from the United States. United States, Asia and Europe.
In the operation, they arrested five people, including the 'czar' of smuggling in the port of Buenaventura, Ricardo Orozco Baeza, also known by the aliases 'El Bendído' or 'El Zar', as well as retired colonel Alexander Galeano Ardila. and Police Major Mario Andrés Sarmiento.
The supposedly dismantled structure managed weekly the illegal access of 30 containers with textiles, footwear, cigarettes and other products to Buenaventura, the largest Colombian port on the Pacific. According to the Prosecutor's Office, this would have represented an illicit income that amounted to eight billion pesos (about 1,891 million euros) in one year.
