As these events were developing, the growing illegal drug trade and its consequences were also increasingly becoming a matter of widespread importance to all participants in the Colombian conflict.

Pressure from the U. S. government and critical sectors of Colombian society was met with further violence, as the Medellín Cartel and its hitmen, bribed or murdered numerous public officials, politicians and others who stood in its way by supporting the implementation of extradition of Colombian nationals to the U. S. Victims of cartel violence included Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara, assassinated in 1984, an event which made the Betancur administration begin to directly oppose the drug lords.

* 1993 – Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar is shot and killed in Medellín.

* 1993 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug trafficker ( b. 1949 )

* 1949 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord ( d. 1993 )

* 1943 – Griselda Blanco, Colombian drug lord ( d. 2012 )

* 1992 – Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison fearing extradition to the United States.

This categorisation includes the Sicilian Mafia, Jamaican posses, Colombian drug trafficking groups, Nigerian organised crime groups, Japanese Yakuza ( or Boryokudan ), Korean criminal groups and ethnic Chinese criminal groups.

First, that any connections between drug trafficking organizations and Colombian insurgents were " ad hoc ' alliances of convenience '".

After the 21 April 2001 capture of Brazilian drug lord Luiz Fernando da Costa ( aka Fernandinho Beira-Mar ) in Colombia, Colombian and Brazilian authorities accused him of cooperating with FARC-EP through the exchange of weapons for cocaine.

This operation targets Colombian drug lords using military assets, in what is usually considered a law enforcement area.

* December 2 – Pablo Escobar, Colombian drug lord ( b. 1949 )

* March 11 – Manuel de Dios Unanue, former editor of El Diario La Prensa, is slain in a restaurant in Queens after having received death threats from the Colombian drug cartels.

* July 22 – Near Medellín, Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar escapes from his luxury prison, fearing extradition to the United States.

* August 19 – 21 – In response to the murder of a judge, a provincial police chief, and presidential candidate Galán, the authorities of Colombia arrest 11, 000 suspected Colombian drug traffickers.

Originally preying on Puglia's substantial wine and olive oil industries, the group moved into fraud, gunrunning and drug trafficking and made alliances with international criminal organizations such as the Russian and Albanian mafias, Colombian drug cartels, Chinese Triads, and Japanese Yakuza.

It is clear that each U. S. government agency which had a relationship with Noriega turned a blind eye to his corruption and drug dealing, even as he was emerging as a key player on behalf of the Medellín Cartel ( a member of which was notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar ).

Other criminal gangs include the Russian Mafia, Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, the Chinese Triads, the Irish Mob, the Japanese Yakuza, the Jamaican-British Yardies and other crime syndicates.

* In the 1980s, the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar used vehicle bombs extensively against government forces and population centers in Colombia and Latin America.

Category: Colombian drug traffickers

On December 2, 1993, the notorious drug lord was gunned down by Colombian police, a triumph for the Gaviria administration.

Colombian Cartels is a generic term that usually refers to four, usually rival, criminal organizations involved in Illegal drug trade in Colombia:

With the growth of the Colombian drug cartels in the 1980s, coca leaf became a valuable agricultural commodity, particularly in Peru and Bolivia, where the quality of coca is higher than in Colombia.

Over the next decade, the Punisher would be shown fighting virtually every known criminal organization including the Italian Mafia, the Russian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, the Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Chinese Triads, Jamaican Yardies, the Irish Mob, biker gangs, street gangs, gunrunning militias, muggers, killers, rapists, psychopaths, violent racists, sadists, pedophiles, and corrupt city officials.

Colombian cartels, such as the Medellín Cartel, would utilise Galician clans, already accustomed to smuggling in tobacco, to smuggle drugs into Spain.

Within a year, he built an international operation that included, but not limited to, narcotics, money laundering, and prostitution and made ties with the American Mafia and Colombian drug cartels, eventually extending to Miami, Los Angeles, and Boston.

He alleged that his reasons for joining the FARC included the assassination of many of his Patriotic Union Party colleagues and the persecution against them by paramilitary militias and Colombian drug cartels.

Colombian drug cartels have made the Amazon Rainforest into biotechnological nightmare / utopia.

In 1997, Los Angeles is suffering from both a heat wave and a turf war between heavily-armed Colombian and Jamaican drug cartels.

* Danny Glover as Lieutenant Mike Harrigan, an LAPD officer, who is investigating rival Jamaican and Colombian drug cartels.

Between 1999-2009 Manta Air Base was used by U. S. air forces to support anti-narcotics military operations and surveillance flights against Colombian drug trafficking cartels.

In June 2012 the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo had access to intelligent reports that showed that cocaine cartels were behind condominiuns and real estate as well as industries such as meat processing.

Galán declared himself enemy of the dangerous and influential Colombian drug cartels, mainly the Medellín Cartel led by Pablo Escobar ( who had been part of his New Liberalism Movement ) and Gonzalo Rodríguez aka " El Mexicano ", that were corrupting the Colombian society at all levels.

In 2004, new information in a letter written by one of the hitmen who had infiltrated his escort suggested that Galán's assassination was executed with help of corrupt Colombian policemen and some of his own bodyguards, who had been bought off by the drug cartels, including Pablo Escobar and other drug lords.

This casting of blame was critical to the success of the undercover activities because the people found to be responsible for drug seizures were no longer trusted and were liable to be killed by the Colombian drug lords running the cocaine cartels.

For example, Gillespie served as the interim Chargé d ' Affaires during the 1983 United States Invasion of Grenada as well as in Colombia from 1985 until 1988, when the government sought to crack down on the Illegal drug trade in Colombia and the Colombian drug cartels.

Gillespie often received daily death threats from the Colombian cartels.

Still, this policy makes food cheaper for the average Colombian than it would be if agricultural trade were more restricted.

However, according to 2005 data reported by the Colombian government, the road network totaled 163, 000 kilometers, 68 percent of which were paved and in good condition.

Under the latest such decree, president Turbay had implemented security policies that, though of some military value against the M-19 in particular, were considered highly questionable both inside and outside Colombian circles due to numerous accusations of military human rights abuses against suspects and captured guerrillas.

The main stated objectives of the original Plan Colombia were to promote peace, combat the narcotics industry, revive the Colombian economy, improve respect for human rights, and strengthen the democratic and social institutions of the country.

For example, Ecuador has closed its main border crossing with Colombia every night since August 2002, when evidence emerged that Colombian guerrillas and paramilitaries were asserting control over Ecuador's border communities.

The donations were intended to support operations countering drug-smuggling and guerilla activity along its Colombian border.

During the war there were at least three attempts by Panamanian Liberals to seize control of Panama and potentially achieve full autonomy, including one led by Liberal guerrillas like Belisario Porras and Victoriano Lorenzo, each of whom was suppressed by a collaboration of Conservative Colombian and U. S. forces under the Mallarino-Bidlack Treaty.

The strength of the FARC – EP forces is indeterminate ; in 2007, the FARC said they were an armed force of 18, 000 men and women ; in 2010, the Colombian military calculated that FARC forces consisted of approximately 18, 000 members, 50 per cent of which were armed guerrilla combatants ; and, in 2011, the President of Colombia, Juan Manuel Santos, said that the FARC – EP forces comprised fewer than 8, 000 members.

In 1964, the FARC – EP were established as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party ( Partido Comunista Colombiano, PCC ), after the Colombian military attacked rural Communist enclaves in the aftermath of The Violence ( La Violencia, ca.

In Colombian history and culture, the killings are known as La Violencia ( The Violence, 1948 – 58 ); most of the people killed were peasants and laborers in rural Colombia.

Many of the PCC's attempts at organizing peasants, were met with violent repression by the Colombian government, and landowning class.

16, 000 Colombian troops, backed by the U. S., attacked the 1, 000 villagers, only 48 of whom were armed.

Over 70 % of all Colombian presidential candidates in 1990 — and 100 % of those from center-left parties — were assassinated.

During this period, the Colombian government continued its negotiations with the FARC-EP and other armed groups, some of which were successful.

Before the break off of dialogue, a letter written by a group of Colombian intellectuals ( among whom were Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez ) to the Simón Bolívar Guerrilla Coordinating Board was released denouncing the approach taken by the FARC-EP and the dire consequences that it was having for the country.

The protests were originally organized through the popular social networking site Facebook and were also supported by local Colombian media outlets as well as the Colombian government.

' Timochenko ' announced the new commander in chief is ' Alfonso Cano ' After speculations in several national and international media about the ' softening up ' of the FARC and the announcement of Colombian President Álvaro Uribe that several FARC leaders were ready to surrender and free their captives, the secretariat of the FARC sent out a communiqué emphasizing the death of their founder would not change their approach towards the captives or the humanitarian agreement.