Colombian drug trafficker Edward Fernando Giraldo "Boliqueso" arrested
SEMAR led an operation to capture Colombian drug trafficker Edward Fernando Giraldo "Boliqueso". Mexican President López Obrador assured that the criminal, one of the most wanted in Colombia, has already been extradited.
Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), President of the Republic of Mexico, reported the arrest of one of the most wanted drug traffickers in Colombia and a priority target of US authorities. He is Edward Fernando Giraldo, alias "Boliqueso", also considered one of the "last pure traffickers in Colombia".
In the morning conference, the President announced that it was the Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR) who was in charge of the capture operation in Mexico City (CDMX), which was carried out in cooperation with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States (US), the Colombian Government and other international agencies. The drug trafficker, he commented, is already in the extradition process.
"This arrest was carried out as others, where more intelligence than force is being used because there have been arrests where there is no confrontation. This is a recommendation made to the security forces".
On Wednesday, April 20, the Mexico City Department of Public Safety (SSC CDMX) arrested Edward Giraldo, alias "Boliqueso", on División del Norte Avenue, in the El Rosario neighborhood, in the Coyoacán district.
In a statement issued by the capital's authorities, it is mentioned that the capture was made possible thanks to the implementation of fixed and mobile surveillance by the Security Secretariat, after receiving information that a foreign individual was in Mexican territory, possibly linked to a Colombian criminal group.
As a result, security elements, together with personnel from the National Migration Institute (INM), detained a 35-year-old man, a Colombian citizen who, it was later confirmed, was Edward Giraldo. He was taken to the Mexico City International Airport (AICM) to clarify his legal situation and for extradition purposes to his country.
After learning of the capture of the Boliqueso, the United States announced that it will order the confiscation of any of the criminal's assets that he may have used to commit or facilitate the commission of his crimes.
The constitutional president of Colombia, Iván Duque, communicated what had happened in a message on his Twitter account and thanked the international agencies for their cooperation in the capture of the criminal, considered a high-value target for the DEA and the European Union Agency for Police Cooperation (EUROPOL).
The Colombian president highlighted that Edward Fernando Galindo Cardoza is one of the last "pure" drug traffickers who inherited the business of the now-defunct Norte del Valle Cartel.
The US authorities have informed that they will prosecute him for international conspiracy to distribute cocaine, as expressed in a New York Court document, leaked after the announcement of his capture, and dating from 2015, which details the sum of accusations against the drug trafficker revealed by the US Department of Justice.
According to the document, between May 2011 and December 2014, "Boliqueso" and his accomplices allegedly distributed cocaine throughout the continent in an attempt to smuggle it into the United States.
In the last 15 years, in addition to the drug shipment, he is attributed with the murder of several people, among them María del Socorro Patiño de Moreno, 81 years old, which occurred on June 5, 2015, in the Uribe neighborhood of Yumbo (Valle del Cauca). Likewise, the homicide of Inpec official Julián Bernardo Tacuma Cortés was reported missing on June 6, 2015.
