Word: colombia
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...where his men are planning "an operation." At other times, Eduardo claims, police have stepped out of uniform, put on face masks and carried out killings using weapons given to them by criminal bands. "There's a lot of police who work for us as civilians," he tells TIME. Colombia's commander of the national police refused a TIME request for an interview and a response from Medellín's police chief...
...then as the playground of right-wing paramilitary groups. But Medellín's murder rate dropped steadily after paramilitary fighters started putting down their arms in 2003 as part of a peace agreement with the government - and the city, one of the most dynamic industrial centers of Colombia, slowly re-established itself as a metropolis to reckon with. (See pictures from the life of the drug lord Pablo Escobar...
There was no question that the money was the evil lucre of rebel drug deals, extortion rackets, and ransom payments made by the desperate relatives of hostages. By some estimates, such scams earned the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia - the country's largest guerrilla army known as the FARC - $500 million annually. But knowing that these riches were tainted didn't stop Suárez. "I was so happy. I'd never seen so much money," he said. "It was like the Virgin had appeared before...
...fantastic riches spread, more and more troops began scouring the jungle floor, hacking at the earth like overcaffeinated grave diggers. The blue barrels bulged with Colombian pesos but they also found yellow containers filled with U.S. currency. How much was there? Months later, a report by the office of Colombia's inspector general estimated that the containers held $14 million in U.S. and Colombian currency. But in the same report, several troops testified that the final haul exceeded $43 million. One government investigator said the figure was much higher - more than $80 million...
What's more, the rebel stash had already been stolen by gun-toting bandits performing cashectomies on the good people of Colombia. Rather than committing a crime, Sanabria reasoned, his men were performing a public good. They were cheating the cheaters out of money that would otherwise go toward grenades and guns, making the guerrillas stronger. Rather than being castigated, they ought to be decorated. There was also a sense among the troops that the cash was a serendipitous payoff for years of dangerous duty protecting the homeland. And if that wasn't enough, it was Easter week, the holiest...