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John Vizcaino / Reuters
Police take away Erickson Vargas Cardona after a shootout Wednesday in Girardota, Colombia, near Medellin.
Erikson Vargas Cardona, the head of what remains of the murderous cartel founded by the late druglord Pablo Escobar, has been arrested and will be extradited to the U.S., Colombian authorities said Wednesday.
President Juan Manuel Santos announced the arrest of Vargas, who is known by the nom de guerre "Sebastian," on his Twitter account Wednesday. Adopting Olympian metaphors, he called the arrest a "triple jump" against crime and awarded symbolic gold medals to the police.
Police acting on a tip found Vargas in Girardota, near Medellin, ground zero for Colombia's deadly drug trade, said Gen. Jose Roberto Leon Riano, chief of the national police. Riano said Vargas would be extradited to New York, where he is wanted on drug trafficking charges.
One of Vargas' bodyguards was killed and another was captured in a shootout with police, the Colombian newspaper La Republica reported.
Authorities said the capture of Vargas could signal the beginning of the end for La Oficina de Envigado, which Vargas took over when his predecessor, Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, also known as Valenciano, was arrested last year. Bonilla, too, was extradited to the U.S.
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"No one can escape," Santos said later Wednesday at a news conference in Bogota, according to the Prensa Latina news agency. "Everyone is going to fall, as they have been falling, one after the other. Those who thought they were untouchable are in prison or in the grave."
La Oficina de Envigado represents the remnants of the Medellin Cartel, the ruthless drug empire built during the 1980s by Pablo Escobar — an operation so widespread that Forbes magazine once estimated his worth at $24 billion, making him the seventh-richest man in the world at the time.
After Escobar was killed by police in 1993, the cartel fractured, eventually re-coalescing in recent years under the leadership of Bonilla and Vargas, a resurgence that Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón attributed in part to an alliance with the Los Zetas cartel in Mexico.
"It's important to note that this is beneficial not only for Colombia, but it also has an international impact," Pinzón said.
More world stories from NBC News:
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Hey if Colombia can send US Sebastian can we send Bush & Obama to the Hague?
I mean honestly which is worse Drug Smuggling or War Crimes?
Remember America come this November.....
If they are a Democrat Incumbent Vote Republican, and if they are a Republican Incumbent Vote Democratic.
We need to Stop giving "Them" Seniority for their Crimes against America and start Prosecuting "Them" like the Drug Smuggling Criminals THEY are!
War Crimes for Obama??? What are you.... 12?
now youre talking
Hmm Secret Aid to Al-Qaeda in Syria & Libya...Starting at least 5 new "Not Wars"....Now blowing up Civilians in Syria Libya Yemen, Sudan Pakistan without a declaration of War while continuing to do so in Afghanistan & Iraq and only God knows where else...Murdering & Indefinite Detention / Imprisonment of American Citizens without Trial....etc....etc...ect...
Yeap I'd had to say that pretty much covers most of POMPUS Obama's "War Crimes" or don't you bother to read?
I think even a "12" year Old Truant probably pays more attention than you do!
@ K. Truant, YOU are a sheep. Go back to sleep...
Lets just hope he disappears from his plane flight at about 39,000 feet over the ocean
Sebastian has been doing a good job at causing a lot of expense for the drug trafficcing he was doing. Now we gotta pay transpotation and security to get him here. Than he gets to spend our money again for a court room, judge, 3 hots and a cot, only to get charged for drug trafficcing in NY. He will serve a few years, again at our expense. He will than be set free and head back to Columbia and do it all over again.
Another thought here is his Lawyer might get lucky and get him off, and than all this money, time, and energy has been for naught.
I'll bet a dollar to a dime that somebody is already at the helm and it is business as usual in Columbia. It never seams to end.
They better find a judge that is near the end of his life because he may be anyway after a conviction is secured.
Why ship hime here; Columbia has jails, prizes, recognition. Let someone else (another country) pay for their own problems instead of US..........................................................................just once....
I agree, why are we paying for his life in jail?
Because in Clombia he would get maybe 10 years and released to go back into business. Hell his cartel would be controlled by him while he serves his time.
Just thinking here, if all he does in Columbia is process coke, which is illegal to do, and doesn't do anyother crime like murder or something. I'm thinking that doesn't make him look anyless than a Moonshiner here. It's a crime but not a very big one. In both cases IF the workers get away before the Law gets there all they can do is destroy the equipment they use.
To 6dogs: Obviously you are not equipped to think this through. He has wrecked countless lives on men, women and children. Especially children, have you ever thought about the life of a child who parent or parents are on drugs. The people you aresupposed be able to count on aren't there at all, in fact you might have to protect yourself against them. They don't provide for you as a normal parent would. You have to fend for yourself and your siblings. Your world is full of heartbreak and disappointment. You will never have a normal life. Society has to deal with the repercussions of him supplying coke to 'your' parent(s) and yes it includes murder. When you turn on the TV in the morning and hear about the shootings the night before you can bet it's about drugs. Wise up
WHO IS GOING TO TAKE HIS PLACE..
Columbia? Columbia?? What happened to the prostitute scandal???
For some reason, I think the prostitute scandal will be ongoing for a long, long time.
Who gives a flyin f*ck about the prostitute scandal? Is that resulting in the deaths of anyone?
Thank you
Me 3 Thanks
That was more of a Secret Service scandal.
editori: Columbia is in South Carolina. Colombia is a country in South America.
Victory for Colombia! I no where have heard of this man or his present drug gang I find this a quite interesting. Whatever trial he may take it might be the end of his career choice and I hope this drug war continues until the Los Zetas are defeated completely!
I have embarked on a new challenge to myself and others. As I worked on the $100 Trillion dollar ideas for America and the World, I am challenging myself to work on as many as possible $Zillion dollar ideas. I once said to God; "what I wouldn't do if every star in our universe was a silver dollar that showered thee Earth, or if every snowflake were "stars on the ground" and were diamonds. With my first name David, I seek a cup of overflowing, with a blessing, not just I, but that the World can't contain. It doesn't seem possible, but with God, all things are possible. So I beseech the Lord, with thee other Lord's Prayer: "All that the Father has is Mine, all that is Mine is Thine, give onto my friends (the World) all that is Ours." I share these words and prayer with you, to also accept the challenge to come up with $Zillion dollar ideas, through prayer (speaking and listening to God) and through brainstorming, as if it is solely up to us. As I once said: for every issue that confronts us on a personal (singular) level, God has a million antidotes at His hand, per person, per issue. Let it be done!
My first $Zillion dollar idea is a global crackdown on unprescribed illegal drugs, like cocaine and heroin and all the rest, like acid and marijuana. If we eliminate illegal drug use, we also eliminate AIDS and brain-damage, health-care (hospitals) and prisons. Then instead of society being self-destructive, the World becomes more productive in positive goals achieved. This would also hold true, for the tobacco and alcohol industry, being healthier and Jesus reminds us to be of sober mind. Being sober also creates less property damage, like auto accidents and home emergencies, like fires. Less impaired judgment equals "the night watchman" and less dangers lurking in the dark, like birth defects, unwanted pregnancies and abortion. A clear conscience also equals confidence and productivity and genius.
The wretched seek "fast money" in gambling or "casting lots for His garment." Thee odds today of winning is like getting struck by lightning twice. Even if they were two to one, if you only bet a dollar, there is a 50% chance you would lose. If you bet "your shirt" then there is a 50% chance of losing everything. This is a global epidemic, even in stocks and bonds and commodities and the money market. We need to have the "puritan work ethic" and make money thee old-fashioned way and earn it. Like the global war on drugs, I urge you to go before the United Nations and make International Laws against gambling, even Bingo and Raffles. You can earn more of a sure thing in Auctions, Flea Markets and Yard Sales, "one man's treasure, is another man's trash." You don't know how often, I sadly heard that the wife hawked her diamond to win the $500.00 cover-all in Bingo for Christmas presents or School clothes for the kids. I here you once could cash in your car at Mohegan Sun, to attempt to gain back your losses, now the Indians no longer accept cars, because they have too many. But you can still cash in your homestead. The strip at Las Vegas is all glitz and glamour, but one block away it is inner city slums, lined with pawn shops. Las Vegas airport has also the most death threats in the Nation, because family can't afford to get on a plane home, because they even cashed in their airline ticket. Oft times, gambling is still run by organized crime, like Interpol don't know? Finally gambling can become an addiction and wreak havoc on the family as a unit. This is not a volunteer tax, it is an epidemic disease and a scam. Tax the wealthy and raise the wages of the common good. This will save and create Zillions of dollars, ending a life of wretched groveling and destruction. Real Christians don't believe in gambling! One Nation Under God and George Washington's prayer for the Nation to Jesus Christ. Would we disrespect our American Flag? Then why do we Christ's garment? Have some respect! The Lord will provide. God Bless!
Here is my third $ Zilllion dollar idea! As I had asked God to shower thee Earth with "silver dollars" It seems feasible that each "head of household" have a silver dollar created in a series of 5000 coins with the picture of the head of household engraved on thee obverse and your family embossed on the reverse. The coins would all cost the same price as a one ounce silver coin, but you would not sell them, but trade them with rich and poor alike, until globally all coins were traded and the next year we would (our States vs. The Lottery) come out with a new series of 5000 coins per head of household. I feel in my heart, each coin should be marked with an imprinter of a small red crucifix, for "just one drop of his precious blood" (Globally). You could lend or borrow on your coins, like Jenghis Khan and "The Adventures of Marco Polo" with lithograph-style greenbacks (printed by the US Treasury, here in America) with the lithographs of 5000 as valuable as works of art. This is my third Zillion dollar idea. Your series of coins and lithographs will last a lifetime, filled with riches.
Holy crap David!!!
Yeh, Holy crap David, they are already doing that. Well, I got to admit it is only a trill + a few hundred bill or so. I just can't fathum a Zillion Deficit.
David, take your meds and go to your room in the basement. Does you mom even know you are on the computer
Hey I got a 10 zillion dollar idea. Ban religion, execute the zealots...and start with the self righteous...
He must have not cut in the CIA on their "share".
More likely the DEA wasn't getting enough "confiscated" money from his operation.
as long as Americans keep using drugs.....ther will be a suplier.
They would not produce drugs if there were no demand. Raise your kids right and they won't get into that garbage.
I have never understood drug addicts. If you are that unhappy in your life, do booze. It is cheaper and legal.
@honor, The person selling drugs to kid and adults alike is just a pusher. They come in all skin tones, sizes, shapes, and all classes of wealth. The dress in anything from Joe Sh!t the ragbag to $1,000 suites. They come in ranges from young punks and honer students, to sweet old grannies. Don't be so profiling about what a pusher looks like. It's like this you neighbor does a little pot now and than and you wonder where he's getting it from. How about that industrius young preteen boy down the street that sets up a lemonade stand all summer long? How about the guy riding around selling Icecream to you and your kids?
The TV documentaries will only show the pusher in what is perceived as his natural habitant, the street corner. The 2 setups that I cited have actually went on in a couple of places where I was stationed in the Military.
Hell, some even come with badges!!!!!
I'm happy we are bring them to justice btu we have never been able to get that country to stop being a major supplier of drugs.
Kill him
Legalize drugs
Another one bites the dust. Legalize , NO al you can not legalize everything that is wrong. It is a long fight but a good one.
Another parasite sucking off my taxes. Since it is such a good one get off your fat as$$ and send your money. Iit is one more scam by the govt.
Dan , you i am guessing you do not even pay taxes.
We like to get involved in everythung around the world. We love to police the world, but we forgot to fix probelms in our own country.
Amen, Alec. Time we start spending our own money on our own problems. Drug addiction, teen pregnancy, AIDS, crumbling infrastructure, no national health system...hmmm. Sounds like the profile of a third-world country, doesn't it?
And where do you think the biggest market for the drugs this guy is accused of peddling go to, Alec? Which country do you think suffers the ill effects of that drug traffic more? If the US just ignored drug kingpins in Columbia, Mexico, etc., do you think the drug traffic in the US would just magically blow away in the wind?
Kill the @!$%# and be done with it. Then start on the next one in line. No debate just a bullet.
I'm sure all of you are aware of the cartel violence in Mexico. Well, you have the death of Pablo Escobar to thank for that. Colombia let Escobar run amuck. Lol....when finally pressured by the DEA, he was caught, but allowed to build his own prison, not handicapping his cocaine empire at all. So the DEA applies more pressure and Escobar catches wind of this and simply drives away from his prison. So finally, the DEA, along with Colombian officials, hunt down Escobar and kill him.
In comes Mexico. With Escobar no longer being a threat, Mexican cartels battle till this day for the "freed up" cocaine business. Now with this guy out of the way, I be a buffalo nickel things will get worse in Mexico. They didn't put a huge dent in the trafficking of cocaine, they just pulled it closer to home.
Simplistic and not even correct. Drug interdiction is like squeezing a balloon, squeeze it one place and it comes out in another. The "War on Drugs" concentrated on Florida in the 80s. There is about a 90 mile choke point there and they were sucessful.. So the Cali cartels brought up the coke through Mexico (about a 2000 mile choke point) using Mexican cartel passageways and paying the mexicans in product and the Mexican have taken it over since then and the violence is already accross the border but it is going to get really bad soon. The DEA of course would rather bust medical marijuana facilities than dangerous cartel people and hey it is lifetime employment cause they have a "mission". The drug war has been good politics, keep the masses scared of crime and lets face it, we can't be to smart anyway.
Dan, of course, I wasn't there, but the numerous sources I researched for a school paper must be wrong. There was even a documentary presented on TV that collaborated almost everything to a T. I did my best to keep things short and simple for our fine readers, but just exactly where am I wrong???
Dan,
Wait what?
Did I miss something?
Didn't the two of you make just about the same point but worded a little differently?
Seems you both said something to the effect of,
Stop them in one place and they pop up in another.
Just saying
The problem with this type of event is that while it sounds spanky, in a practical way all it does is replace (a) people who are more focused on making money and resort to violence only when necessary for business purposes with (b) people who are more focused on violence and happen to be in the same business as the other folks . . .
The business continues, because the demand continues, but the consequence is that by removing the more constrained folks, they are replaced with less constrained folks, and the level of violence increases . . .
The other part of the problem is that the federal government has no actual desire to end the use of illegal drugs in our great nation, which is evidenced among other things by the fact that Afghanistan is the leading producer of heroin and opium, but rather than stop all of it, which we could do, (a) we did nearly nothing to end opium farming and (b) now we are planning to leave and turn everything back to the Afghanis, with the opium plantations intact and productive . . .
For the slower folks, it might be helpful to use a patently surreal and disturbing analogy, metaphor, or simile, where for example consider a reality where there was a market for human heads as an ingredient for soup . . .
It certainly is patently surreal, but the way to do the mapping is to think outside the box and ask the question, "Why can't I buy a human head at the local grocery store?"
People die every day, and intuitively there should not be a shortage of human heads, but "Why can't I buy a human head at the local grocery store?"
The answer is that approximately 99.999 percent of the people on this planet (a) do not want to buy a human head; (b) think that the idea is so disgusting it does not enter their minds; and (c) if someone started selling human heads, that person would be stopped as soon as anyone discovered it . . .
In other words, it is so far over the edge of reason that the civilized people of this planet have zero tolerance for it . . .
So, replace "selling human heads as ingredients for soup" with "illegal drugs", and it is not so difficult to connect the dots . . .
There is a huge trade in illegal drugs, because the people of this planet not only tolerate it but also encourage it . . .
President Nixon issued the executive order to create the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in July 1973, and since then illegal drug use in our great nation has increased at a steady pace, where the perspective here in the sound isolation studio is that this is just too great of a coincidence to be inconsequential . . .
In other words, the federal government created a "super agency" and one of the consequences is that the people who are in the business of producing and marketing illegal drugs created their own "super agencies", which colloquially are called "cartels" . . .
Regarding technology, there are satellite surveillance systems that can read the screen of an iPhone from outer space, and when you connect the dots the perspective here in the sound isolation studio is that we have the technology to know whatever we decide we want to know, and if there currently is a shortage of these types of surveillance satellites, we can build more of them, as is the case with surveillance drones, and so forth and so on . . .
I am not suggesting that it is a particularly easy thing to do, but I am suggesting that it is not such a difficult thing to do . . .
And I am suggesting that it is not done, because there is no desire to do it, which is vastly disturbing . . .
If nothing else works, we could bomb Afghanistan, Bolivia, Columbia, Mexico, Peru, and anywhere else there are illegal drug plantations and factories . . .
It might annoy the people of those countries greatly, but so what . . .
So what!
None of them have the level of weapons we have, and yet they are killing us with their illegal drugs, so screw them royally until they stop doing it . . .
The other way to do it is to clamp down on our borders, which among other things is an excellent way to end the unemployment problem, since having a virtual festival of inspectors, border guards, and so forth will employ a lot of people, all of whom need to be American citizens . . .
Instead of inspecting less than 1 percent of imports, inspect 100 percent of imports . . .
Instead of having hundreds or thousands of miles of unprotected borders, have no unprotected borders . . .
And yet another strategy is to legalize at least some of the currently illegal drugs, which probably is the most practical solution at least for a few things like marijuana and some of the psychedelic drugs, which could and should include some guidelines, rules, monitoring, licensing requirements, including compatibility testing or whatever one wants to call it, and so forth and so on . . .
Regardless of solutions, I think it is accurate to suggest that the current system not only (a) does not work but also (b) makes the problem worse rather than better, really . . .
Really! :-o
why should we waste our tax money on this low life for the rest of his life when its alot more easy to just put a bullet in his head and save thousands and thousands of hard earn tax money Im sure the ppl he murdered in cold blood would understand and agree, but welcome to dumb USA where it is a land of second chances even when you're a criminal.
Authorities said the capture of Vargas could signal the beginning of the end for La Oficina de Envigado, which Vargas took over when his predecessor, Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, also known as Valenciano, was arrested last year. Bonilla, too, was extradited to the U.S.
Beginning of the end my butt, someone else will just step up and claim the power. Remember when RICO was gonna "end" the mob?
Send the junkies to Columbia and return the DEA/ATF mugs to the car wash.
MSNBC has decided to become irrelivant in the Mexico USA news field. The most recent article is six days old and MSNBC never reports on news about foreign nationals within the US. The cartel illegal alien dynamic has more impact on the lives of average Americans than Iraq and Afganistan combined but MSNBC wants to sweep it under the rug. The space is given for celebrities that most of us have never heard of while hard news is left on the cutting room floor. I don't know what to call MSNBC but it surely isn't a source for news.
Go back over to fox for your propaganda fix.
Fourteen murdered and packed into an SUV in Mexico. Not one word in MSNBC. I rest my case.
This comment is for Dan (who claimed a Colombian government official told him ... blah, blah, blah) and the myriad of other posters on so many other threads from different articles ...
Quit claiming you are somehow in the know about current events because you claim personal knowledge because of some purported connection to those in the higher up or know information because you are somehow related to so and so, etc. etc.
Do you really think everyone accepts your comments at face value? Quit blowing smoke out of your $ss. You certainly remind me of boorish phony name droppers.
what do the arrows mean?
Why is the US determined to bring this thug to trial and send him to prison here in the US, where taxpayers will have to support him the rest of his life? He will just run the drug cartel from inside prison. Just throw him out of the airplane somewhere over Amazonia.
Chances are he'll be found hanged in his cell, during or after trial. People will of course wonder why he wasn't put on Death Watch, and the response would have been that "he had shown no suicidal tendancies. we were completely caught off guard."
To many people have died in direct relation to the drugs this gentleman helped ship. Chances are he will not be alive in two years, let alone even one. He will be executed, one way, or another.
Excuse me anyone in 2012 who doesn't know that the American Government controls of and promotes drug smuggling and distribution throughout the world is intentionally being "Naive"!
The "Powers that be" in DC needed some face time and threw one of their "Out Of Favor" distributors to the "Press" and nothing else!
Excuse me but when they take Obama & Bush's War Crimes Seriously and when they put Federal Agents dealing Guns to their Pet "Drug Cartels" as in Fast & Furious then I might support Our "Government's" actions!
So how many time do they have to "Rob The Bank" and "Steal Drugs to Children" before you can admit (at least to yourselves) the Washington DC are the Drug Dealing Bank Robbing Criminals?
Do Not Reward these Criminals who currently "Ruining Our Country" once again, Refuse to Re-Elect ANYONE in November!
Anybody else has to be better than what we have right now!
If they are an Incumbent.....Vote for the OTHER Guy or Gal!
do we not have enough criminals an prisoners in our own jails and streets that we not have to go overseas and get more ? wow this makes no sense, what if mexico or columbia came in and took our citizens off of our streets and took our people to their country and put them on trial?? i wonder if we would be okay with that?? amazing...
NO! not ole sebastian too?! just saw him in chruch last sunday in columbia, he was and is a good chruch going man, sings in the choir every sunday,, a good GOD fearing cathloic boy, he gives to the needy the hungry, he is more like a priest than a drug lord, look at his innocent face, does he look like a man who would sell dope? well maybe he does , i think they have the wrong guy, but in case they dont? i need to head down there and take over where he left off,, provide benefits for his employees, a extra bottle of wine a month, all is good in columbia, wonder if i need to speak spanish,?