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| Graphic illustration by El Espectator |
From "Marcos" and "Soldado" to "Tito" and "Chiquito"; drug trafficking links between Colombia and the Balkans are deep.
President Ivan Duque called it the "heaviest blow" to Colombian drug trafficking in this century, comparable only to the arrest of drug boss Pablo Escobar three decades ago.
The emotion was understandable. Dairo Antonio Usuga, better known in Colombia as "Otoniel", was the most wanted drug trafficker in the country, a former guerrilla turned into the leader of "El Clan del Golfo", Colombia's largest criminal gang.
He was arrested in late October. 500 soldiers and 22 helicopters landed at his rural shelter in northwestern Colombia.
However, the effect of Otoniel's fall will be felt far more widely than just his homeland in South America. Authorities say El Clan del Golfo had alliances with international drug cartels in Mexico, Italy, and the Balkans.
The last connection is not a coincidence. The links between organized crime groups in Colombia and the Balkans date back many years, based not only on mutual interest but on similar backgrounds and sometimes, on military or paramilitary experience.
The ties were so close that Balkan traffickers' envoys would personally visit Otoniel to negotiate terms face-to-face, Colombian authorities say.
"Many Balkan criminals had military training in their countries and they could also belong to paramilitary groups or intelligence agencies," said a Colombian police investigator, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Early connection
In the way the underworld operates, links between drug traffickers can sometimes deteriorate.
In March 2020, a Serb citizen named Dejan Stanimirovic was shot dead in Colombia's Meta province during a drunken brawl with a man named Jose Vicente Rivera Mendoza. Stanimirovic, known in Colombia as "Marcos", is said to have been a member of a criminal gang in the Balkans called "Keka". Mendoza, known as "Soldado" or "Soldier", was related to Otoniel's "El Clan Del Golfo".
But Stanimirovic was not the first criminal link between Colombia and the Balkan countries. And it is unlikely to be the last.
In fact, the links to drug trafficking date back at least two decades, to the period after the bloody dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia and Albania's turbulent transition to capitalism, a period that brought about the creation of powerful local mafias often rooted in conflict.
The links were officially exposed for the first time in 2001 when five Albanian nationals - including a police officer - were arrested in Albania in a joint operation between Colombian and Albanian police that established a link between the Medellin cartel founded by Escobar and some elements of the Balkan mafia. Sixteen years later, two Colombian men and the grandson of former Albanian communist dictator Enver Hoxha, Ermal Hoxha, were found guilty of drug trafficking by an Albanian court.
In Serbia, what started in the early 2000s with prominent crime figure Sreten Jocic continued with Darko Saric, who was convicted by a Serbian court in 2018 of smuggling 5.7 tonnes of cocaine from South America to Europe, un overthrown verdict in June this year by the High Court for procedural reasons.
Saric is linked to the Colombian drug cartel and the Los Rastrojos paramilitary group, formed by Cartel del Norte del Valle leader Wílber Varela, known as Jabón.
Then, in 2019, Serbian citizen Vladimir Vidakovic died of unknown causes at a hospital in Medelín, Escobar's hometown. Originally identified by Colombian authorities as a "Serbian tourist", Vidakovic was, in fact, believed to be arranging drug shipments from Colombia to Europe and was killed by rivals.
Bananas for Europe
Colombia is not the only connection to South America. Ecuadorian police believe the border between the two countries - especially between the provinces of Putumayo and Sucumbíos - is the main route taken by Balkan organized crime groups that smuggle cocaine.
The area is controlled by former guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and members of La Constru, a paramilitary organization linked to Mexican organized crime groups and one of the main suppliers of cocaine to the Balkan mafia.
Cargoes are sent to the Ecuadorian ports of Guayaquil and El Oro, according to Ecuadorian media, and loaded onto ships, often with bananas, destined for Europe.
Between 2014 and 2020, Ecuador arrested 24 people suspected of involvement in organized crime groups in the Balkans. In November 2020, Albanian citizen Adriatik Tresa was shot in the living room of his home by a paid assassin masked as a police officer.
Ecuadorian authorities believe Cesar Emilio Montenegro, a member of Varela's Cartel del Norte del Valle, is the main link to Albanian crime elements operating in South America. Among those was Agim Çerma.
Çerma, an Albanian citizen, was arrested in July this year in Montería, in northern Colombia, on suspicion of sending cocaine to Europe by private plane. Çerma, who is facing charges in the US, had spent the previous seven years living in the seaport of Barranquilla. A few weeks after his arrest, a police operation involving Europol and Colombian police busted a drug trafficking ring of more than 60 people linked to the Balkans.
A few months ago, a Montenegrin citizen named Ivan Armus was arrested after half a ton of cocaine was seized on a sailing boat in the Colombian port city of Cartagena. Armus is believed to have lived in Colombia for three years before his arrest. Colombian narcotics investigators told El Espectador that he had fled Spain in 2018 after being implicated in a drug-related murder.
Authorities said that in addition to providing cocaine from Otoniel's El Clan del Golfo, Armus also had links to National Liberation Army guerrillas in the Catatumbo sub-region.
"Chiquito Malo" and "Tito"
According to General Jorge Luis Vargas, director of the Colombian National Police, the envoys of the Balkan mafia groups would travel to the mountain range of the Paramillo and Urabá Massif to negotiate with Otoniel and his right-hand man, the Chiquito Malo.
Malo is suspected of playing a key role in the smuggling of 96 tonnes of cocaine into the US between 2003 and 2021, for which Otoniel and his partner Ávila Villadiego have been indicted in New York.
Malo came to the attention of European authorities almost four years ago, say Colombian police sources, during an investigation against Bosnian citizen Edin Gacanin, otherwise known by the nickname "Tito".
According to official documents, Gacanin is believed to live in Dubai, from where he is thought to direct drug trafficking between South America and Eastern Europe.
Gacanin's uncle, Mirza Gacanin, was arrested in the Dutch town of Breda in May 2020 on suspicion of money laundering. Police believe he was involved in cocaine trafficking hidden among bananas that departed from Antioquia, northwestern Colombia, and were caught in the Belgian port of Antwerp.
Law enforcement agencies suspect that Malo is the main link between "El Clan del Golfo" and the Balkan mafia, and not just through Gacanin.
Colombian authorities are also investigating what contacts Montenegrin Tomislav Pavlovic had before his arrest in January 2019 in a Brazilian police operation called "Low Cost". Reports in Brazil say Pavlovic met several times with Colombian cartel envoys.
Colombian police sources told El Espectador that drug deals take place during face-to-face meetings between one or two envoys of a Balkan cartel and their Colombian counterparts in a remote region.
Cocaine shipments are usually made by cargo ships or private jet. In the first case, investigators say the ships usually make additional stops as they leave national ports to "clean up" their origin, partly masking the fact that the cargo is from Colombia.
In June 2019, more than 15 tons of cocaine were seized on a ship from Chile that arrived at the US port of Philadelphia, the largest amount of drugs ever seized in the US. No connection was made publicly between the ship and Colombia or the Balkans, but close sources say the smuggling operation was typical of how Balkan and Colombian mafias co-operate.
The other less common route is by air. This was the specialty of Çerma. Known as "Jimmy", Çerma was eavesdropped on, say police sources, as he was going to meet the leaders of "El Clan del Golfo".