Colombia’s former police chief will act as security advisor to the frontrunner in Mexico’s presidential election, local media reported Friday.
Oscar Naranjo, 55, who was involved in the capture of Pablo Escobar and is credited with dismantling many of the country’s most powerful drug trafficking networks, announced this week he is retiring after 36 years in the national police force.
But if Enrique Pena Nieto, the candidate for the country’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) who is leading the polls, wins in July, Naranjo will go back to work as security advisor to Nieto, who has pledged to reduce crime in Mexico.
He also announced plans to act as external security advisor for the Inter-American Development Bank, which provides multilateral financing throughout Latin America.
In Colombia, the four-star general’s approval ratings have equalled every political figure save former President Alvaro Uribe, according to the Associated Press. An ex-US ambassador called him “perhaps the smartest, best informed member” of Colombia’s government in a 2009 Wikileaks cable.
