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| Colombian authorities said Javier Antonio Calle Serna was on their list of most wanted men |
Police in
Colombia say an alleged drugs lord on the country's most wanted list has turned
himself in.
Javier
Antonio Calle Serna, better known as Comba, handed himself in to agents of the
US Drug Enforcement Administration on the island of Aruba.
Comba is
accused of the murder in 2008 of Wilber Varela, a Colombian drugs baron whose
drug-smuggling routes he supposedly took over.
Comba, 43,
has been taken to New York where he will stand trial.
'The
Fighter'
Colombian
Deputy Police Chief Gen Jose Roberto Leon said Comba had been in negotiations
with the US authorities for months.
He said
Comba handed himself in to US Drug Enforcement Administration agents on Friday
in Aruba, after the "pressure on him from the security forces got too
much".
Gen Leon
said Comba, short for Combatiente (Fighter), had started his criminal career in
the 1980s, when he joined the left-wing Farc rebel movement.
According
to Gen Leon, Comba met drug dealer Wilber Varela in the 1990s and soon joined
him as his right man hand in the Norte del Valle drugs cartel.
Deadly feud
Their
alliance is believed to have lasted for more than a decade.
But
according to police information, during a cartel-internal feud, Comba aligned
himself with Wilber Varela's arch enemy, a man known as Daniel "The
Madman" Barrera.
Police say
their differences escalated and Comba killed his erstwhile boss and mentor in
2008.
Comba is
accused of having taken over the drug smuggling routes run by Wilber Varela and
creating his own criminal gang, the Rastrojos.
The
Rastrojos are believed to run much of the drug trafficking in the western Valle
del Cauca province, as well as being involved in extortion and kidnapping.
US
authorities say the Rastrojos have smuggled more than 30 tonnes of cocaine from
Colombia to Mexico since 2008, using everything from speedboats, to fishing
vessels, to semi-submersibles.
Comba is
expected to face charges of drug trafficking in New York, where he was taken
after he turned himself in.
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