MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Gulf Clan lashes back at Colombian society to defend their leader

The AGC has launched a terror campaign in retaliation for Otoniel's extradition

Around a dozen, vehicles were burned, and businesses and schools were closed as fear gripped ordinary Colombians in various parts of the country as they came across threatening pamphlets warning of an “armed strike” by the Gulf Clan in retaliation for Otoniel's extradition.

Dairo Antonio Usuga -better known as “Otoniel”- was brought Wednesday afternoon to Bogota's ElDorado airport, under heavy security, where a DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) plane was waiting to take him to the United States.

Read also: Otoniel extradited to United States

His delivery to a New York court was felt in the early hours of the morning of Thursday in the sub-region called Bajo Cauca Antioquia (northwest), in towns in the departments of Sucre and Cordoba, as well as municipalities in the south of the department of Bolivar (north).

These were at least two documents attributed to the “Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia” (AGC), the political name of the “Gulf Clan”, which the authorities describe as a criminal organization of paramilitary origin.

The effects of this extradition left at least four vehicles burned on Thursday morning, two in Zaragoza and two in Caceres, while businesses closed out of fear in the towns of Tarazá and Caceres, in the department of Antioquia. Six other vehicles were burned down in the Sucre department, including buses, cargo trucks, and construction machinery.

At least six community radio stations in Bajo Cauca, a sub-region in the northwest that includes six municipalities, were shut down to avoid broadcasting threatening messages from the Clan.

Authorities in the city of Sincelejo -the capital of Sucre- have banned motorcycles from being ridden by two or more people during the night and early morning, Mayor Andrés Gómez explained.

Homes in the municipalities of San Onofre, Sincelejo, Morroa, and San Benito de Abad, all in Sucre, dawned Friday with graffiti of the AGC.

In the department of Córdoba, fear took hold of towns such as Tierra Alta, Ayapel, and Montelibano, where graffiti also appeared on several houses; while in the municipality of Cereté a person was murdered, apparently for disobeying the Clan's order to close the fruit and vegetable store, according to local press reports.

In Bolívar, two other cargo vehicles were burned in the municipality of Barranco de Loba, while in the towns of San Pablo and Montecristo there was graffiti of the AGC, and threatening pamphlets circulated.

Anderson Quiceno of the Association of Cargo Transporters (ATC) said that in the last 12 hours they have had losses of around US$ 400 million due to the burning of vehicles and the fear to circulate through the highways of the north and northwest of the country as a result of the “armed strike.”

(Source; ANSA)