Word: capo
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Nevertheless, despite the victory celebrations, many expect the capture of "Don Mario" may do little to stem the drug trade nor the violence it brings - and may in fact trigger a surge in bloodshed. "When a capo comes down there is a fight to substitute him," says Francisco Thoumi, an expert and author of several books on the political economy of the drug trade. Says Adam Isaacson, a Colombia analyst at the Washington-based Center for International Policy: "Don Mario had important control over cocaine production and drug trafficking routes, and now they're all up for grabs." (See pictures...
...variety of crimes, including torture, land-theft and massacre But Don Mario refused to go through with the demobilization agreement, became a fugitive and continued running his drug-trafficking operation. Now Medellin is bracing for the struggle to determine his successor. What follows will be business as usual. "One capo goes down, another takes his place," says an ex-intelligence official...
Experts expect Don Mario's arrest to lead to violence between gangs in the hillsides ringing Medellin. An ex-intelligence official also predicts deadly infighting in the capo's traditional bastions of power, such as the regions of Cordoba, Uraba and Choco. "We will see a war," says the former official. "There are more than 1,000 men guarding a whole lot of money." (Should a drug lord be one of the TIME 100? Vote for the most influential people in the world...
...astonishingly, worked for both the U.S. embassy in Mexico City and the Sinaloa narcos. Days later federal police chief Gerardo Garay - whose predecessor, Edgar Millan, was murdered by narco hit men last May, allegedly with the aid of a federal cop - resigned after being linked to a Sinaloa capo. Mario Velarde, a top boss of the federal police force's antidrug unit and a former private secretary to Garcia Luna, was also detained this week, for leaking info to the narcos. Ramirez and all the accused deny the charges. But as one federal security analyst says, it's no longer...
...Steve Fainaru Da Capo; 254 pages...