Colombian security forces on Saturday captured the country’s most wanted drug trafficker, reports The Associated Press.
President Iván Duque likened the arrest of Dairo Antonio Úsuga to the capture three decades ago of Pablo Escobar.
Úsuga, better known by his alias Otoniel, is the alleged head of the much-feared Gulf Clan, whose army of assassins has terrorized much of northern Colombia to gain control of major cocaine smuggling routes through thick jungles north to Central America and onto the US.
He has 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. 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 organization by the US government.
Authorities said intelligence provided by the US and UK led more than 500 soldiers and members of Colombia's special forces to Úsuga's jungle hideout.