Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

What We're Watching: Colombia nabs top druglord

What We're Watching: Colombia nabs top druglord

Dairo Antonio Usuga David, alias "Otoniel", top leader of the Gulf clan, poses for a photo while escorted by Colombian military soldiers inside a helicopter after being captured, in Turbo, Colombia October 23, 2021.

Colombian Defense Ministry/Handout via REUTERS
Make us preferred on Google

Colombia nabs top drug kingpin: Colombian security forces have arrested Dairo Antonio Usuga, the most-wanted drug kingpin in the country since Pablo Escobar. Usuga – known by his alias Otoniel – is head of the notorious Gulf Cartel, and will likely be extradited to face a slew of charges in the US, which had a $5 million bounty on his head. While some say Otoniel's capture is a big win for Colombia, others say that rather than striking a blow to narco-related violence, the strategy of taking down kingpins creates more power struggles within cartels, in turn leading to more violence and bloodshed. This was the case following the 1993 death of Escobar and the 2016 arrest of "El Chapo" Guzmán in Mexico. Still, if Otoniel spills the beans on his operations in exchange for a lighter sentence in America, that could provide critical intelligence for Colombian and US drug enforcement to better target other narcos at a time when large swaths of rural Colombia are now ruled by gangs, contributing to regional instability.

More For You

25 years after 9/11, how much has changed?
- YouTube
Twenty-five years after 9/11, how much has actually changed? 9/11 is one of those rare moments that divides history into a “before” and an “after.” On Ian Explains, Ian Bremmer looks back at the attacks that reshaped US foreign policy, launched the war on terror, and ushered in an era of military intervention, mass surveillance, and profound [...]
How 9/11 reshaped America and the world
- YouTube
September 11, 2001 was a day that forever changed America… and the world. It reordered domestic politics, reshaped how Americans thought about national security, and how the United States wielded its enormous power around the world. Former Defense Secretary Mark Esper joins Ian Bremmer on GZERO World on the 25th anniversary of 9/11 to reflect on [...]
All we’ve lost
Twenty-five years ago this morning, I rolled out of bed ready for a big day. My return to grad school at New York’s Columbia University was set to kick off that morning with a class called “War, Peace, and Strategy,” and my friend David and I had tickets to Yankee Stadium to see Roger Clemens pitch that evening.David called early to ask if he [...]
What we're still watching
A group of firefighters walks near the remains of the destroyed World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. Two hijacked U.S. commercial planes slammed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center early on Tuesday, causing both 110-story landmarks to collapse in thunderous clouds of fire and smoke.
The air qualityJust a week after the Twin Towers fell, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency declared the air in Lower Manhattan safe to breathe. However, files released by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office last week confirmed that 10 months after the attacks, health officials were still finding evidence of carcinogens like asbestos. The [...]