The National Police of Ecuador handed over this Monday to the authorities of Colombia to Carlos Arturo Landázurinicknamed ‘Commander Gringo‘, for allegedly being in command of the Forehead Oliver Sinisterraone of the dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Landázuri was handed over to the Colombian Police at the border bridge in Rumichacawhere he was transferred after being detained on Sunday night during the raid on a property in the province of Imbabura, located in the north of the Ecuadorian Andesas the culmination of a police investigation that took three months.
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He Oliver Front Sinisterraresponsible for the murder of three Ecuadorian members of the newspaper El Comercio in 2018, operates between the Colombian department of Nariño (south) and the Ecuadorian province of Esmeraldas (north), where according to Ecuador Police He has links to a criminal gang now considered terrorist by the Government.
The arrest of ‘Commander Gringo‘occurs in the middle of theinternal armed conflict” declared since the beginning of January by the Government of Ecuador to combat organized crime gangs, dedicated mainly to drug trafficking, and which have been classified as terrorist groups and non-state belligerent actors.
Among the actions attributed to Landazuri there is the car bomb attack on San Lorenzo Police Station (Ecuador), the kidnapping of twelve anti-narcotics police officers in the township The Espriella, from Tumaco (Colombia); as well as five Ecuadorian citizens in the border area between Ecuador and Colombia.
According to the Ecuadorian Police report, he was the leader of the Daniel Aldana mobile column while the FARC was active and then assumed the role of military leader of the dissident group. Oliver Sinisterra Frontafter the death of their leaders Walter Patricio Arizala (‘Guacho’) and Luis Alberto Bermeo (‘Smurf‘).
As ‘commander’ of the Oliver Sinisterra Front, he is credited with having created a criminal alliance with the Pacific Guerrilla Coordination structure and having criminal influence over the Tumaco municipality, in Nariño; and in the province of Esmeraldas.
In these border territories, police authorities relate it to the crimes of drug trafficking, firearms trafficking and supply of supplies for the processing of cocaine hydrochloride.
The border area of Emeralds with Colombiawhere the Oliver Sinisterra Frontis one of the most convulsed of Ecuador due to the violence of criminal gangs, which have turned it into a corridor to transport cocaine to the Ecuadorian coast and ports.
The Oliver Sinisterra Front became known in Ecuador in 2018 for the murder of the journalistic team of the newspaper El Comercio, made up of the journalist Javier Ortegathe photographer Paul Rivas and the driver Efrain Segarrain an action under the leadership of ‘Guacho’, who months later was killed in Colombian territory in a military operation.
