Oficina de Envigado
La Oficina de Envigado is a drug cartel and criminal organization originally founded as an enforcement wing and debt collection service of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel. Despite being noted for its historical affiliation with drug trafficking and other organized crime activities, Oficina de Envigado's criminal activities were no longer centered on direct involvement in such activity by 2019 and are now mainly focused on providing services to lower level drug traffickers and mafia groups. It operates throughout Colombia, but mainly in the cities of Medellín and Envigado. It also controlled extortion, gambling, and money laundering businesses within the Valle de Aburrá that surrounds Medellín. It positioned itself as the chief mediator and debt collector in drug trafficking disputes and maintained major connections with Colombian paramilitaries and guerillas.
History
La Oficina was founded as an enforcement wing for the Medellín Cartel by Diego Murillo Bejarano, aka Don Berna, however Murillo fell out with Escobar and eventually joined forces with Los Pepes in order to oust him. Murillo then began to affiliate his Oficina with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, organizing drug trafficking operations on their behalf. La Terraza, a gang of the most feared hit men in the country, is also under La Oficina's control.La Oficina eventually evolved into a sizable narco-trafficking operation spanning from Medellín to the northern coast of Colombia, including the Panamanian border area, drawing many of its leaders from former Colombian paramilitary blocs. Its lower ranks are filled with teenagers and young men from the poorer neighborhoods in the hills of Medellín, mainly Robledo and Manrique, who moonlight as hit men willing to kill for as little as US$25.
After the AUC demobilised in 2005, Murillo was arrested for the murder of a local politician, although he managed to run his empire from prison and made a deal with the authorities to use his power to keep violence to a minimum. In 2008, Murillo was extradited along with other paramilitary leaders, and La Oficina was hurt by infighting between rival factions led by Maximiliano Bonilla Orozco, alias Valenciano, and Jordan Acevedo, alias Sebastian, a native of Barrio Popular in Medellín, as well as conflict with the Usuga Clan. Bonilla was arrested in 2011, while Vargas was arrested at his ranch in August 2012.
On July 20, 2014, Hernán Alonso Villa, better known as El Ratón, was stopped en route to one of his safe houses in the south-eastern province of Alicante carrying €40,000 in cash which, according to police, came from drug running and assassinations Villa served as head of Oficina's military wing and was believed to have carried out 400 murders, and other criminal acts including disappearances, extortions and kidnappings.
On December 9, 2017, then Oficina leaders Juan Carlos Mesa Vallejo, also known as “Tom” or “Carlos Chata,” was arrested on December 9 while celebrating his 50th birthday and was charged with aggravated criminal association, illegally carrying military-grade weapons and use of false documents.
One of the leaders of La Oficina, Sebastián Murillo Echeverri, alias "Lindo" and "Lindolfo", son of Rodrigo Murillo alias Jimmy from the Medellín Cartel, was arrested on February 6, 2018 in El Poblado, Medellín along with several high-ranking members of the Group.
On March 23, 2019, Iván Darío Suárez Muñoz, alias “Iván el Barbado,” was arrested during a raid on a luxury condo in Piedecuesta, a town in the northeast department of Santander. On April 3, 2019, Mauricio Zapata Orozco, alias “Chicho,” was arrested at his parents’ home in the wealthy El Poblado district. Orozco came to lead “La Terraza,” one of the Oficina's subgroups, two years after his release from prison. On May 8, 2019, John Eduard Barbosa, an ex-police officer and Oficina lieutenant, was captured while driving in Sabaneta, on the outskirts of Medellín. The arrests of these three individuals left Oficina de Evigado with only five remaining operatives and leaders still at large in the group's homeland of Medellín.