BOGOTA, (Reuters) – One of Colombia’s most notorious drug kingpins, known as “The Knife” for his use of the weapon to mutilate victims, has died after an air raid in the Andean nation, the government said yesterday.
“The king of killers has fallen,” President Juan Manuel Santos told journalists, attributing more than 3,000 deaths to Pedro Oliviero Guerrero, known as “Cuchillo” or the “Knife.”
Some 200 Colombian police officers launched a Christmas Day raid with air support against Guerrero in the southeastern part of the country. But they only confirmed yesterday that Guerrero’s corpse had been found.
Colombia remains the world’s No. 1 cocaine producer and both left-wing rebels and right-wing former paramilitaries are involved in the drug trade.
Police said the body was discovered in a small river, which meant he probably drown while trying to escape the raid. Two police officers were killed in the operation, Santos said.
Guerrero is an ex-paramilitary leader who then ran a drug gang called the Colombian Revolutionary Popular Antiterrorist Army, according to experts. Colombia had placed a reward of up to $2.5 million for information leading to his capture. This year, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklisted Guerrero, forbidding Americans from conducting any business or transactions with him.
Guerrero operated primarily in the eastern plains of Colombia between Bogota and the Venezuelan border, according to the Treasury Department.
