His nickname is 'El Loco,' or The Madman, and he was believed to be one of Colombia's most powerful and brutal drug traffickers. But now it appears that El Loco was simply a front man for another kingpin, according to U.S. prosecutors. And that king of kingpins may have actually himself been a snitch, if local press reports are to be believed.
El Loco's arrest in Venezuela last September was heralded as a major victory in the war on drugs. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos called him 'the last of the great kingpins,' and the operation that swooped on him while chatting on a pay phone involved everything from wiretaps to a broad coalition of Venezuelan police, Colombian intelligence officials, the British MI6, and agents from the CIA and the Drug Enforcement Administration. Barrera, on the run, had undergone plastic surgery and burnt his fingertips, according to officials. That Venezuelan officials were cooperating with the CIA and DEA was also strange, with one theory that Colombian police worked as middlemen between the two sides, without officials from Caracas and Washington ever coming into direct contact.
According to U.S. federal indictments sent to Colombia as part of an extradition request obtained by Colombian newspaper El Tiempo, the drug boss oversaw hundreds of tons of cocaine exports a month, and acted as the security chief for the El Dorado Cartel, also known as 'The Junta.' Though El Loco criticized other Colombian drug lords for their brutality ' he called deceased drug lord Dario Antonio 'an animal' for having 'killed children over nothing' in audio tapes recorded by police last year ' Barrea himself was accused of torturing and killing rival drug traffickers who crossed him.
Behind El Loco (real name: Daniel Barrera) was another boss, however. His name is Luis 'Don Lucho' Caicedo, and the U.S. alleges that he was the man really in charge.
According to an 2010 indictment from the Eastern District Court of New York, Caicado and Barrera had been involved in tens of millions of dollars in cocaine transactions (.pdf) in 2007 and 2008 alone, with average sale of $11 million in cocaine per shipment. Over the years, the ill-gotten proceeds added up into the hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly even billions.
Another indictment from U.S. courts (.pdf), this one solely against Barrera, alleged he bought 30,000 kilograms of raw cocaine paste per month from Colombian rebel group FARC, and converted it into an equivalent amount of powder cocaine for an annual total of 400 tons of cocaine per year. The cocaine was then exported to the U.S. and around the world. He also played multiple sides. To ensure his drugs could be produced in peace, and make it out of the country securely, Barrera paid protection money to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a notorious former right-wing paramilitary group and FARC rival.
But it seemed to have unraveled in 2010, after Caicedo was arrested in Argentina and then quickly extradited to Florida. Since his arrest, and in exchange for a reduced 10-year sentence, Caicedo reportedly gave up the aliases of 246 associates in the cocaine business, and identified 126 of them by name, according to Colombian newspaper El Espectador. He's also taken to reading self-help books.
Did Barrera's own boss give him up? That's unknown. 'It is probable that as part of Don Lucho's cooperation, he provided authorities intelligence about Barrera, which may have helped lead to his capture,' wrote analyst Elyssa Pachico of Latin American crime monitoring group InSight. 'Barrera's previous service to Don Lucho's organization ' which apparently included participating in torture ' likely counted for little once Don Lucho found himself in a U.S. prison and needing to negotiate.'
Meanwhile, Gen. Oscar Naranjo, the retired commander of the Colombian national police and now security adviser to the new Mexican President, has alleged the Caicado-Barrera organization worked as suppliers to the Sinaloa Cartel. But if that's true, then it's also a sign of how far the Colombian cartels have fallen and been supplanted by the larger and more dangerous Mexican cartels, with the Colombian gangs playing a more supporting role. Though, it also doesn't help their place in the world when the cartel's senior leadership gets busted, and then eats itself.
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