Caracas, 06 Feb. AVN.- Officers of the Venezuelan National Anti-Drugs Office (ONA) arrested a prominent Colombian drug dealer, Nelson Orlando Buitrago Parada, aka "Caballo," on Saturday. According to Venezuela’s minister for justice and internal affairs, Tareck El Aissami, Buitriago has been involved, together with his father and brother, "in several murders" and in "an important network of narco-paramilitarism" operating in Colombian plains.

El Aissami made the announcement on Monday during an interview with a local radio station.

"We arrested another Colombian drug trafficker for whom INTERPOL had issued a red alert on Saturday night in Anzoategui state (eastern Venezuela), specifically in the town El Tigre," the minister said.

Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos said Buitrago was one of the country’s “most wanted paramilitary leaders” and is accused of murder, kidnapping, and drug trafficking. He was a leader with the United Self Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), an umbrella group for various right-wing paramilitary groups set up to fight Marxist guerrillas in the 1990s. Most blocs of the AUC have since demobilised but some have carried on and became heavily involved in drug-trafficking.

“[Buitrago] played the leading role in one of the bloodiest wars in the Western Plains and left hundreds, perhaps thousands of victims,” Santos said.

Santos formally thanked the Venezuelan government for the capture and said Buitrago, along with his brother, who was also recently captured, will be taken to Colombia this Thursday.

On 24 January, when the ONA celebrated its sixth anniversary, El Aissami remarked that Venezuelan police and military bodies had arrested 76 heads and members of different international drug trafficking organizations so far, not including Buitrago.These have been handed over to the justice systems of the countries which request it, including Colombia, United States, France, Italy, Netherlands, among others.

Edited and expanded by Venezuelanalysis.com