New Drug bursts inside Colombia

El Gordo has just been arrested. He is 17 years old and already paid assassin. Twenty policemen are escorted through the streets of Cali, suspected of involvement in trafficking crack cocaine, an activity through one of his best moments in Colombia.

More powerful and toxic than cocaine, whose waste is produced, the crack cocaine crime has generated a renewed urban authorities categorized as one of its main problems. Faced with competition from Mexican cartels now dominate the cocaine trade in the United States and pursued by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Colombian traffickers have begun to promote the crack cocaine in the domestic market to offset declining revenue.

"It is very toxic," says police officer Hector Javier Ortiz by showing a small amount of heroin seized in a house in the neighborhood Siloe, shortly before the arrest of Gordo.According to General Miguel Angel Bojaca, chief of police in Cali (500 km southwest of Bogotá), drug dealers understand that " selling the drug was not as profitable and have taken domestic markets in the cities , where small-scale distributed ".

This is a "micro-trafficking" who run criminal gangs built in part by former right-wing paramilitaries . Thus, in addition to his status Colombia drug producing country of the consumer.

According to the National Narcotics, 13.2% of young people between 18 and 24 had tried drugs in 2008 , compared to 4.6% in 1996. "Bazooka generates a behavior change in consumers. health declines and lack of money to venture into all kinds of crimes including armed robbery, theft of vehicles and residences, "Ortiz says the agent. "At the same time generates more violence with the running of the markets between retailers and distributors. Drug trafficking is the fuel of all violence," he says.

A dose of crack cocaine in Colombia is sold for 500 pesos (30 cents) . According to police, a distribution network that can work between 15 and 20 people reported a $ 250 000 per month. These revenues cause a major attraction in a country where the poverty rate rises to 46%, and the bands Gordo as the waging a war to death in search of the micro-traffic control. In 2010 there were 1813 homicides in Cali, which is equivalent to a rate of 80 deaths per 100 000 inhabitants, of which at least 30% would be linked to drug trafficking.

El Gordo, whom the police seized a revolver Smith & Wesson 38mm, is charged with three murders. Also suspected of involvement in the murder of a police officer just two months ago.

According to experts and the police, the root of this violence is, paradoxically, the success of Plan Colombia, launched in late 1999 with U.S. support, has so far provided more than 6,000 million dollars to the fight drugs in this country. The purpose of this plan is to reduce by 50% Colombia.Y drug production in eleven years later the figures are positive, producing 350 tons of cocaine in 2010 compared to 900 tons ten years ago. In addition, hundreds of drug traffickers have been extradited to the United States. But for young Colombians involved in drug trafficking and the result is fatal, life expectancy in poor neighborhoods no more than 30 years of age .