Spain provisionally released alias Smurf and Petro described it as “regrettable”

The president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, described this Saturday as “very regrettable” that Diego Marín Buitrago, known as Papa Pitufo or Smurf, considered the head of smuggling in Colombia and detained this Friday on the east coast of Spain, has been provisionally released. .

“Spanish justice released Colombia’s main smuggler”: Gustavo Petro

“Very regrettable, even though we are speaking with the Spanish president and there is an extradition treaty that we have fully complied with, the Spanish Justice has released the main smuggler and money launderer of drug trafficking in Colombia. Mr. Diego Marín has been released” , he stated in his X Petro account.

Pitufo, of Spanish nationality and born in Colombia, was arrested on Friday in Gandía, on the east coast of Spain, by agents of the Central Operational Unit (UCO) of the Civil Guard, and according to legal sources informed EFE, he was released today. provisional with the precautionary measures of passport withdrawal, the obligation to sign every 15 days in court, as well as the prohibition of leaving the national territory.

The same sources have indicated that Colombia must now formalize the extradition request and subsequently it will be the Criminal Chamber of the National Court that will decide whether to hand him over or not.

Born in 1962 in Palestine, Caldas (Colombia), he was wanted by the judicial authorities of his country with an international arrest warrant for smuggling, bribery and membership in a criminal organization.

The National Police of Colombia requested the UCO to locate this fugitive once the international arrest warrant was issued after an operation by the Colombian security forces, the US anti-drug agency DEA and the Attorney General’s Office of that South American country.

Petro assured yesterday that Pitufo “is the head of a huge criminal association that includes people who are within the State, in political life and in general in crime in Colombia dedicated to most of the smuggling in the country.”

“What has been presented today is basically the largest operation in the history of Colombia against smuggling,” alleged the president, who explained that “smuggling in Colombia is the other side of drug trafficking, the way cocaine exported is converted into Colombian pesos”.

An operation carried out on March 13 that resulted in several people being arrested accused of smuggling, criminal organization and bribery.
In the March operation, the Colombian authorities dismantled the largest smuggling gang in the country, responsible, according to investigators, for the entry of goods from the United States, Asia and Europe, or in other words, 80 percent of all that moves illegally in Colombian ports.