BOGOTA (Reuters) – The death of Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva will help disrupt trafficking ties between Mexican cocaine gangs and their Colombian counterparts, the Andean country’s police chief said yesterday.
Beltran Leyva, a cartel chief known as “The Boss of Bosses” and sought by Mexico and the United States, was killed on Wednesday night in a gunfight with elite Navy troops who had raided his apartment complex in the Mexican city of Cuernavaca.
“It is satisfying to know that this strike will really weaken the ties between the Mexican cartels and Colombian organizations,” national police commander Gen Oscar Naranjo told reporters.
Naranjo said the Colombia trafficker closest to Beltran was Ever Villafane Martinez, captured by Mexican police and extradited to the United States in April this year. He was considered by authorities the Mexican’s key cocaine supplier.
The Beltran Leyva cartel is one of a half dozen whose turf wars have killed more than 16,000 people since President Felipe Calderon came to power in 2006 and sent the army to tackle drug gangs.
Colombia, the world’s top cocaine producer, has received more than $6 billion in US aid since 2000 in its fight against leftist guerrillas and drug lords. Violence from the conflict has eased but hundreds of tonnes of cocaine still flow each year from Colombia to markets in the United States and Europe.
Colombia’s Cali, Medellin and Norte del Valle drug cartels once led the cocaine trade until they were battered by US-backed counter-narcotics operations.
Authorities say Mexican gangs have now taken over the primary role of getting the Colombian drugs into the lucrative US market.
