Memo Fantasma May Walk Out of Prison: Corruption or Incompetence?
AUC
/26 JUN 2022
BY JEREMY MCDERMOTT
The former paramilitary commander and drug lord, alias “Memo Fantasma,” may walk out of prison in Colombia on June 28. If released, his high-level connections and millions in criminal assets could result in witnesses being threatened, or in Memo disappearing altogether.
Guillermo León Acevedo Giraldo, facing charges of money laundering alongside his mother and grandmother, is seeking his release after spending a year in prison on pre-trial detention. The Attorney General’s Office scheduled a hearing to request another year of pre-trial detention on June 3, but Acevedo did not show up for the virtual audience, despite the fact he is being held at La Picota prison in Bogotá. Requests sent to Colombia’s prison service, Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario (INPEC), to explain how a prisoner could skip a judicial hearing, went unanswered.
Acevedo is the definition of a flight risk. InSight Crime has obtained evidence of Memo Fantasma being connected to drug trafficking activities in Mexico, Venezuela, Spain, and Australia. The contacts needed to smuggle drugs through these nations would also give him the opportunity to live under the radar.
Memo Fantasma during a virtual court hearing.
And he has the money to do so. InSight Crime estimates he has earned more than $100 million during his criminal career and has discovered more than three million euros belonging to Acevedo in Spain, as well as large sums of money being moved through the UK and Italy. This suggests Acevedo has money stashed in at least these three European nations. A greater worry is the risk that he may seek to intimidate witnesses and manipulate the legal process.
. . .
*In the interests of transparency, it should be stated that Guillermo Acevedo brought a charge of criminal libel against McDermott, the author of this article and the initial investigative series. The case has since been archived by the Attorney General’s Office for lack of evidence.
More:
https://insightcrime.org/investigations/memo-fantasma-out-prison-corruption-incompetence/
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The cartel La Oficina de Envigado wikipedia
La Oficina de Envigado (English: The Office of Envigado) is a drug cartel and criminal organization originally founded as an enforcement and collections arm of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel.[2] Despite being noted for its historical affiliation with drug trafficking and other organized crime activities, Oficina de Envigado's criminal activities were no longer centered on direct involvement in such activity by 2019 and are now mainly focused on providing services to lower level drug traffickers and mafia groups.[3] It operates throughout Colombia, but mainly in the cities of Medellín and Envigado. It also controlled extortion, gambling, and money laundering businesses within the Valle de Aburrá that surrounds Medellín. It positioned itself as the chief mediator and debt collector in drug trafficking disputes and maintained major connections with Colombian paramilitaries and guerillas.[4]
History
La Oficina was founded as an enforcement wing for the Medellín Cartel by Diego Murillo Bejarano, aka Don Berna (a Popular Liberation Army guerrilla deserter), however Murillo fell out with Escobar and eventually joined forces with Los Pepes in order to oust him. Murillo then began to affiliate his Oficina with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia ("Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia", AUC, in Spanish), organizing drug trafficking operations on their behalf. La Terraza, a gang of the most feared hit men in the country, is also under La Oficina's control.[5]
La Oficina eventually evolved into a sizable narco-trafficking operation spanning from Medellín to the northern coast of Colombia, including the Panamanian border area, drawing many of its leaders from former Colombian paramilitary blocs. Its lower ranks are filled with teenagers and young men from the poorer neighborhoods in the hills of Medellin, mainly Robledo and Manrique, who moonlight as hit men willing to kill for as little as US$25.[4]
After the AUC demobilised in 2005, Murillo was arrested for the murder of a local politician, although he managed to run his empire from prison and made a deal with the authorities to use his power to keep violence to a minimum. In 2008, Murillo was extradited along with other paramilitary leaders, and La Oficina was hurt by infighting between rival factions led by Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, alias Valenciano, and Jordan Acevedo, alias Sebastian, a native of Barrio Popular in Medellin, as well as conflict with the Usuga Clan. Bonilla was arrested in 2011,[6] while Vargas was arrested at his ranch in August 2012.[7]
On July 20, 2014, Hernán Alonso Villa, better known as El Ratón (The Mouse), was stopped en route to one of his safe houses in the south-eastern province of Alicante carrying €40,000 (£31,660) in cash which, according to police, came from drug running and assassinations[8] Villa served as head of Oficina's military wing and was believed to have carried out 400 murders, and other criminal acts including disappearances, extortions and kidnappings.[8]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oficina_de_Envigado
