Who are the notorious Colombian cartel linked to Ireland’s record cocaine haul?

Reports have linked the massive cocaine haul discovered off the coast of Cork to Colombia’s Gulf Clan Cartel also known as the Clan Del Golfo.

The Colombian cartel are the world’s single biggest producers and distributors of cocaine.

According to the Colombian officials, the group exports at least 20 tons of cocaine every month.

The crime syndicate - which has around 3,000 armed men at its disposal – now control most the territory once ruled by Pablo Escobar and the Medellín Cartel.

They account for somewhere between 50 and 70 per cent of Colombia’s cocaine production and were born from the remnants of an outlawed right-wing paramilitary group which fought rebel force FARC during the country’s half-century civil conflict.

Europe has also become, arguably, the biggest market for the cartel’s product and they forged a close bond with the continent’s super-cartel leaders.

Just this week, the US Treasury added the leader of the Clan Del Golfo to their official sanctions list – where he will join Christy Kinahan and his two sons Daniel and Christy jnr.

Jobanis de Jesus Avila Villadiego, known as Chiquito Malo, has been the leader of the Clan del Golfo since the extradition of the previous leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga.

Úsuga - better known by his nickname ‘Otoniel’ – was deported to the US in May 2022 after he was flown into US custody.

Colombia is offering a reward of some $1.2 million for information that aids in locating and arresting Chiquito Malo.

Under ‘Otoniel’s leadership, the Clan del Golfo formed a strong alliance with Balkan, Italian and Mexican cartels and in particular had ties to Edin Gacanin, one of the super cartel business partners of Daniel Kinahan.

The European cocaine super cartel is made up of the Irish Kinahan mafia, the Balkans' Tito and Dino cartel, the Dutch Mocro Mafia and the Italian Camorra.

It is believed that hundreds of tonnes of cocaine were ordered directly for the European market through the relationship and during meetings deep in the Colombian jungles.

The emerging picture of the global movement of cocaine from Colombia, Ecuador and Chile to Europe has given an insight into how the Balkan element of the super cartel brought the drug gangs directly to their suppliers in the mountains where coca leaves are grown.

Sources say a business plan for the merging of the groups was the brainchild of Daniel Kinahan and each cartel brought money and contacts together to form a powerful grouping that has flooded Europe with cocaine over the past five years.

A previous investigation by the Sunday World based on EU drug reports, source information and reports published across the Balkan territories has found that the Kinahan organisation can be directly linked to Otoniel.

Colombian authorities believe that Otoniel regularly met with criminals from Europe, and in particular the Balkans, to negotiate massive cocaine shipments and even brought them into his jungle home to hammer out deals.

Chiquito Malo is also suspected of meeting with the criminals and having a personal relationship with a close associate of Gacinan.

However, Otoniel ultimately pleaded guilty in New York to trafficking nearly 97,000kg (107 tons) of cocaine.

“Tons of cocaine were moved with my permission or at my direction,” Dairo Antonio Úsuga, told a Brooklyn federal court.

“There was a lot of violence with the guerillas and the criminal gangs,” he added, and acknowledged that “in military work, homicides were committed.”

As part of his plea deal Úsuga (51) has agreed to forfeit $216m in criminal cash, although the US government has agreed not to seek a life term as part of a deal to secure his extradition from Colombia.

His capture in October after a seven-year manhunt was compared to the fall of Pablo Escobar in the 1980s by former Colombian president Iván Duque.

Duque said Úsuga was “not only the most dangerous drug trafficker in the world, but he is murderer of social leaders, abuser of boys, girls and adolescents, a murderer of policemen”.

According to prosecutors, Úsuga’s thousands of enforcers carried out attacks, kidnappings, torture, assassinations and organised campaigns against Colombian law enforcement and military troops.

Despite a $5m reward offered by the US Drugs Enforcement Agency for information leading to his arrest, Úsuga eluded capture through a combination of corruption, alliances with both left - and right wing combatants in the internal conflict that has racked Colombia for over half a century.

He was eventually captured in his rural hideout in Antioquia province in north-western Colombia in October 2021, close to the border with Panama in an operation involving 500 soldiers supported by 22 helicopters.

According to the police, the Clan del Golfo buys coca leaves in 12 per cent of the coca plants grown in the departments of Antioquia, Nariño, Norte de Santander, Bolívar and Córdoba.

They also operate from both Honduras and Costa Rica which act as intermediate stations on routes to the United States and Europe respectively

. In Europe, the main access points are the ports of Antwerp and Rotterdam.

According to police intelligence, they ran complete shipping companies to transport containers or cargo of drugs and used about different 200 stamps to identify various blocks of cocaine.

These included logos of well-known clothing brands and other products.

In the last six years, authorities have seized 450 tons of Clan del Golfo cocaine and arrested 31 leaders who now face extradition to the United States.