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Colombia steps up crackdown on cartel

COLOMBIA stepped up its crackdown on a cartel this weekend by sending an additional 2,000 troops and police to help contain rioting gangs.

President Ivan Duque said Dairo Antonio Usuga, known as Otoniel, was the world’s most dangerous trafficker.

Otoniel led the Gulf Clan cartel, which has members recruited from far-right paramilitary groups, and was extradited to the US last week.

The Gulf Clan retaliated by announcing a four-day “armed strike” in the north of the country.

Defence Minister Diego Molano said that the extra troops would be sent to support almost 50,000 personnel already deployed across the region.

The Gulf Clan trafficked between 180 and 200 tonnes of cocaine a year, according to Colombian authorities.

Concerns have been raised about the increased presence of armed officials in the streets due to the increasingly large number of attacks on human rights activists.

A total of 53 human rights activists have been murdered so far this year, an increase of 89 per cent from the first quarter of last year, according to the We Are Defenders Program.

Most of the deaths have not been thoroughly investigated and the murderers remain unknown.

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