Former policemen have formed criminal groups in Medellin, reported newspaper El Tiempo Tuesday.
The newspaper said it received the information from a “top-secret” document from a foreign agency whose name has not been disclosed.
While policemen with ties to criminal organizations have not been uncommon in recent years, their full-on creation of criminal groups would set a new precedent.
The document stated that Medellin was a center of this new form of crime, with the appearance of the term “polibanda” – a porte-manteau of the words police and bandas (gang).
Such a gang has allegedly been acting around the Antioquian’s capital communes of Castilla and 12 de Octubre: “There is a powerful structure of former policemen running the commerce, politics and extortions”, declared an investigator related to the case.
Three policemen recently discharged from the police station in the Santander neighborhood allegedly have ties to this group.
Moreover, a case of suspected criminal activities from former policemen arose in 2008, in the downtown Candelaria station, where 14 were accused of forming a gang involved in the selling of narcotics.
However, the recent phenomenon apparently was not limited to Antioquia, with another case arising in Puerto Rico, Meta – this time involving as many as 35 former policemen in activities of extortion and narco-traficking.
Police officials stated that these claims were not convincing. Colonel Jose Acevado of the Antioquia Police declared that five policemen were under investigation for suspected ties with criminal groups, but that “the denunciations of ‘polibandas’ lack fundaments”.
Officially, the infiltration of criminal groups in the security forces led to more than a hundred investigations in the past year.
