What’s behind the millionaire bay they found in Cali?

The capture in a luxurious home in Cali of notorious drug trafficker Lucio Burbano Portilla, who found a bay with $ 8,700 million, confirms that the capital of the Valley is the safe haven for the leaders of illegal organizations operating across the Pacific Colombian.

According to information obtained by El País, Burbano Portilla had lived in Cali for several years, but his main center of operations was the municipality of Tumaco, in the Pacific of Nariño.

There he began as a trader in meat and refrigerators and in the late 1990s he was one of the key men for the entry of self-defense groups in that area of ​​the country.

At that point Burbano Portilla was working as an employee of the Maritime and Port Directorate of Tumaco, in the degree of specialist before, and contributed with short weapons, motorcycles and logistic material for the group that was initially commanded by the former paramilitary chief Horacio de Jesús Mejía, aka Cold broth.

Read also: Money from a bay found in Cali should be used for social investments, the advisers propose

This was confirmed by the paramilitary chief himself during a presentation hearing before the transitional justice in 2004, in which he revealed that alias El Señor, as Burbano is known, made contributions so that the paramilitaries, at that time the Libertadores of the Front South will provide “security to the people”.

The paramilitary Horacio de Jesús Mejía acknowledged that to enter Nariño, he arrived in Cali for the first time in 1999 accompanied by ten boys from the Caucasus (Antioquia) to create the self-defense groups in Nariño and that it was Burbano who legally provided him with guns purchased in the Brigade and with respective safe conduct, but also supplied illegal weapons.

The Libertadores del Sur front concentrated its operations on the murder of militiamen and members of guerrilla groups and in 2000 was absorbed by the central block of Bolívar, under the command of Carlos Mario Jiménez (“Macaco”).

Burbano Portilla had already been subject to a domain confiscation process in which 143 real estate assets, 9 businesses and a financial entity were seized, for an approximate value of 30 million dollars, according to the Gazette of Congress of 30 July 2008 .

Wandering among the illegal immigrants

After the demobilization of the paramilitary groups, the power of drug trafficking in the regions remained exclusively with the guerrilla organizations and Burbano Portilla ensured its continuity in business together with the Oliver Sinisterra column.

In this way, drug trafficking in his organization was carried out through the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador, where the drugs were taken.

General Giovanni Ponce Parra, National Director of Drug Investigations of the Ecuadorian Police, stressed that in this joint operation, in which the Ecuadorian Public Prosecutor also participated, “seven raids were carried out in the province of Esmeraldas, resulting in the arrest of three Ecuadorians , a Colombian and twelve cell phones “.

“At the same time, ten raids were carried out in Colombia in the departments of Valle del Cauca and Nariño, resulting in the seizure of 2.5 tons of drugs, two motorboats, two vehicles, ten inmates and the bay of Cali with over 8,000 million dollars” , General Ponce said.

The Ecuadorian authorities added that the Burbano Portilla organization “had links with the Mexican cartel of Sinaloa and with the remaining organized armed groups of the Farc guerrillas Oliver Sinisterra and the armed group Los Contadores for the passage of alkaloids through their territories.

For his part, Attorney General Francisco Barbosa added that ten people were arrested in the operation against this organization and also watches and jewelry were found.

The prosecutor’s office indicated that the drugs were collected in Tumaco and then taken by boat to Pampanal de Bolívar, Ecuador, and then shipped to Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico and the United States.

Order of the Council

The conservative caucus has asked the mayor’s office to make arrangements for the money found in the bay to be used for the safety of the city.

“It cannot continue to happen that Cali puts the dead and is affected by all the negative effects of drug trafficking, and that when mafia stalls are found, the resources do not stay in the city, generating the public investment necessary to reduce the insecurity and poverty gaps. “said Fernando Tamayo.