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“Armed Groups capitalize the violence in Valle Del Cauca”

Palmira, Colombia is ranked 8th for world’s most dangerous cities. Guerilla militias and narco-paramilitary groups have made the department of Valle Del Cauca its hub epicenter of Colombian organized crime and a model of the new criminal outsourcing exemplar. the Urabeños and the Rastrojos, the largest of the neo-paramilitary organizations known as the BACRIM (from the Spanish abbreviation of "criminal bands”) are now present in at least 19 out of the department's 42 municipalities. In addition, urban militias run by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia(FARC) are operating in sectors bordering Cali, while the rebels' 30th Front and Arturo Ruiz Mobile Column manage criminal and military networks throughout the region. The result has been a wave of criminality and violence, with Valle not only the most violent department in Colombia for four years running, but also recording the highest kidnapping rate in the country and the second highest rate for extortions.

Valle has been hardest hit, with 250,000 inhabitants -- over 10 percent of the city's population -- ranked as facing high levels of risk in the report. Throughout the department, and especially in Cali, the Urabeños, Rastrojos and the FARC all rely on a form of criminal "outsourcing," according to the report. Each group sub-contracts common criminal groups to fight, run extortion networks, issue threats and even carry out terrorist actions. The current violence sweeping the region is predominantly driven by competition for these drug trafficking networks, with the Urabeños assembling a coalition of local drug lords to seize the territory from the fragmented remains of the Rastrojos. Cali as other violence hotspots which, together with Palmira, account for 74 percent of the region's murders. FAM advises Caution when traveling in Palmira, Colombia.

Read more: https://www.osac.gov/pages/ContentReportDetails.aspx?cid=19072

“The hitman Turned Capo”

Read more: http://www.elespectador.com/noticias/judicial

/el-sicario-se-volvio-capo-articulo-623305

VOL. 1 ISSUE NO. 8