Minister of Defense, Diego Molano Aponte, this week announced the campaign Symbols of Evil, a strategy that seeks to make visible the ringleaders of organized armed groups so that they are fully identified and denounced by the citizens.
They are the most wanted criminals in the country, ringleaders of the National Liberation Army, ELN, Farc dissidents and other groups such as Los Pelusos, all responsible for committing narco-terrorist operations against civilians.
For the minister, these Symbols of Evil are the common enemies to all Colombians. “they are responsible for the main problems that afflict Colombia, such as drug trafficking, recruitment of minors, sexual exploitation, forced abortions among other crimes, that is why we increase the rewards and continue to seek them relentlessly to give them to justice.”
Thus, the Government of President Iván Duque decided to increase the rewards for these criminals. Up to 4,000 million pesos are provided by the ringleaders of the ELN and up to 3,000 million pesos by the ringleaders of the Farc dissidents.
Some of these ringleaders are not in the country, but they in the same way enter the list of the most wanted and dangerous symbols of evil such as Gabino, Iván Márquez, Pablo Beltrán and alias El Paisa among others.
In this way, the reward for information to find ringleaders as alias Gabino of the ELN goes from 2,325 million pesos to 4,000 million pesos, while the reward for information to find alias Iván Márquez goes from 2,325 million pesos to 3,000 million pesos.
These amounts are supplemented by the money offered by the United States government: ten million dollars for alias Iván Márquez, five million dollars for alias Carlos El Puerco, two and a half million dollars for alias Romaña and five million dollars for alias Otoniel, who was arrested on October 23, in the middle of operation Osiris, one of the largest operations executed by our Military Forces and the National Police.
That is why Minister Molano called on citizens in Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Cuba, or anywhere in the world, to provide information to find these individuals. “If we arrest these Symbols of Evil, Colombia will have less drug trafficking, fewer children recruited, fewer peasants enslaved by drugs, less forced displacement, fewer crimes.”
For his part, general Luis Fernando Navarro, General Commander of the Military said that since the seventh of August of 2018 to date, in military and police operations, there have been more than 19,000 neutralizations of members of Organized Armed Groups, including demobilizations, surrenders to justice, arrests and deaths on military operations.
According to the Ministry of Defense, the rewards strategy has been giving positive results, because at the beginning of the year 2021, there were 27 high-value targets and today five have been already neutralized or arrested.
Director of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas, says that the Military and Police Forces have the resources to reach these ringleaders, in addition to strengthening themselves with information of the citizens or even from members of these organizations.
The Symbols of Evil campaign provides total confidentiality for people who give information that leads to the finding of these criminals. To do this, the following telephone lines have been put at the service with absolute confidentiality. National Army 3222734195, Colombian Air Force 3108502024, National Navy 3145952587 and National Police 3232734681.
Source: Defence Sector Communications Office – Ministry of National Defence
