Colombian authorities have over the past few days seized more than 70 properties and four companies belonging to the jailed drug trafficker “Marulo,” who is accused of drug trafficking and money laundering in both United States and Colombia.
Colombian media reported the drug trafficker’s assets were seized in the central Risaralda and southwestern Valle del Cauca departments. They had a combined value of one hundred thousand millions of Colombian pesos, investigators said.
Fernando Vicente Marulanda Trujillo, also known as Marulo, is currently detained in the United States on charges of drug trafficking and money laundering. A parallel investigation against him is currently ongoing in Colombia, the prosecutor general’s office said.
Trujillo is suspected of having set up the Invercinco company in 1984, which was dedicated to the administration of real estate bought with funds from drug trafficking and then legally owned by various front individuals.
Among the assets administrated by Invercinco were real estate belonging to top leaders of the now-defunct Norte del Valle Cartel, such as Jaime Alberto Mejia Gonzalez, alias “Perro,” who is currently serving a sentence in a US prison, Mario Artaisa, Wilber Alirio Varela, alias “Jabon,” killed in Venezuela in 2008, and Carlos Alberto Renteria, alias “Beto Renteria,” who was captured in Venezuela in 2010 and extradited to the US the same year.
The property expropriated by the prosecutor general will now be administrated by the National Direction of Illegal Drugs (DNE).
