Medellin, Colombia is now considered as dangerous as Ciudad Juarez, the border town dubbed Mexico's most dangerous city as a result of the ongoing cartel war there. Authorities in Juarez say killings are up from last year and are hitting record highs.
Colombian authorities estimate there are around 130 street gangs known as "combos" in Medellin, totaling some 6,000 members. Picture above- a gang member in Medellin. Their only real loyalty is to the money that drug capos dole out to hire a gang's services.Capos will supply them with drugs to retail on street corners and occasionally issue them weapons to take on rival gangs loyal to another crime boss.
Until earlier this year, Medellin's drug underworld was ruled by the so-called "Office of Envigado," named after a district of the Medellin metropolitan area. The "office" was a syndicate of the top cocaine bosses who agreed on the basic rules of doing business in the area. They shared smuggling routes and acted as the ultimate enforcers if cartel members reneged on deals or debts.
Chief and his allies have stopped rivals intruding on their turf by strictly enforcing what they call "street rules." A day before the meeting, Chief said he helped bury one of his friends who had been gunned down when he ventured into the heart of Medellin with a girlfriend.
"I couldn't even bear to take a look inside the coffin," he began explaining. "We don't really know who did it. But it was that crack head girlfriend who persuaded him to go down there. So we killed the bitch. "You see that's street rules. You have to answer for our friend and the only way you can do that is pay with your life," he says.
The Chief shied away from questions about which cartel boss is bankrolling his gang. But clearly somebody had been supplying them with guns. They posed with a Czech-made .22-caliber rifle and an assortment of semi-automatic pistols -- as well as the wholesale supply of drugs they then sell on the streets.
As the meeting came to an end: As I get ready to leave I have one last question for Chief: I want to know if he ever had any dreams.
"I've tried to get out of this but it's never quite worked out," he says. "I'd like to sail away in a sailboat. Alone and far away."
SOURCES:
CNN "Power vacuum fuels vicious drug warStory Highlights" Oct 13, 2009
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/americas/10/13/colombia.drug.war/index.html
ALEXANDRA CHUNN
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