Latest news with #ArmandoBenedetti
CBS News
06-05-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Colombia arrests over 200 suspected members of powerful cartel accused of paying recruits $3,500 for "dead police officers"
Colombian authorities said Monday they had captured more than 200 members of the country's biggest drug cartel, which is accused of murdering two dozen security force members in the past month. The Gulf Clan was born out of the right-wing paramilitary groups that fought leftist guerrillas in the 1990s before turning their attention to the cocaine trade. President Gustavo Petro has accused the group, with which he suspended peace talks in early 2023, of devising a strategy to "systematically murder" members of the security forces. Armed forces chief Franciso Cubides told a news conference on Monday the security forces had responded by arresting 217 members of the clan since April 15. He added that 15 other suspected drug traffickers had been shot dead in raids that had netted 6.8 tons of drugs, 123 firearms and more than 15,000 rounds of ammunition. Sixteen police officers and five soldiers have been killed in attacks blamed on what Petro has called the Gulf Clan's "pistol plan." Cubides said the attacks were part of a "desperate response" by armed groups to the "overwhelming" setbacks they were suffering at the hands of the police and military in the north and west of the country. The cartel paid its members "between 10 and 15 million (Colombian pesos, between $2,300 and 3,500) for some dead police officers," Interior Minister Armando Benedetti told a weekly government cabinet meeting. Eight members of Colombia's Gulf Clan drug cartel were killed in clashes with security forces in April 2015, the army said. Colombia Army The Gulf Clan, which engages in illegal gold mining, racketeering and migrant smuggling, is believed to number about 7,500 members, according to government estimates. The group's "primary source of income is from cocaine trafficking, which it uses to fund its paramilitary activities," according to the U.S. State Department. Last month, the police and the DEA killed a man dubbed "Chirimoya," one of the cartel's five commanders, as well as eight other members of the group. The Gulf Clan is one of several cartels recently designated as foreign terrorist groups by the United States. In 2022, the Gulf Clan shut down dozens of towns in northern Colombia for four days in reaction to its leader being extradited to the U.S. for trial. The arrests come as Colombia suffers its worst outburst of violence since the leftist FARC guerrilla army, one of the world's oldest rebel movements, signed a peace deal with the government in 2016. Benedetti admitted last month that Petro's strategy of pursuing "total peace" by engaging in dialogue with the country's various armed groups had not borne fruit. On Petro's watch, several armed groups, particularly the Gulf Clan, have grown stronger, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez admitted recently in an AFP interview.
Bloomberg
22-04-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Colombia to Put Petro's Failed Labor Reform Directly to Voters
President Gustavo Petro's government will ask Colombians themselves whether they want better pay and working conditions after Congress rejected the leftist leader's labor reform. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti and Labor Minister Antonio Sanguino unveiled the list of 12 questions the government intends to put to a referendum during a news conference Tuesday in Bogota.
Bloomberg
25-02-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Colombia's President Taps Ex-Venezuela Envoy as Interior Minister
President Gustavo Petro put Armando Benedetti in charge of repairing the Colombian government's relationship with Congress amid deep divisions within the leftist leader's administration. Benedetti, a former senator and diplomat, was named interior minister late Monday, with the presidency publishing his resumé on the appointees page of its website. He'll be tasked with securing legislative approval for key social reforms, including overhauls of health and labor aimed at expanding the state's role in public services and increasing worker benefits.
Yahoo
05-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Televised Colombian Cabinet Meeting Descends Into Rancor, Tears
(Bloomberg) -- Colombia's first-ever televised cabinet meeting descended into acrimony as President Gustavo Petro's ministers traded barbs and aired personal grievances. State Farm Seeks Emergency California Rate Hike After Fires New York's First 'Passive House' School Is a Model of Downtown Density NYC's Newest Transit Leader Builds a Worker-Driven Strategy When French Communists Went on a Brutalist Building Boom Transportation Memos Favor Places With Higher Birth and Marriage Rates Petro arranged for the Tuesday evening gathering to be webcast to make Colombia's democracy more transparent, and said that most such events would be broadcast in future. After Petro had spent more than an hour questioning his housing and defense ministers on unfinished projects, participation was opened to the group and some of his ministers began attacking one another. Vice President Francia Márquez said the newly-named Foreign Minister Laura Sarabia had treated her with disrespect and said she disagreed with the appointment of scandal-plagued Armando Benedetti as chief of staff. Márquez also complained about the various graft scandals that have roiled the administration. 'It pains me that in this government that I helped elect there are so many acts of corruption,' Márquez said. Environment Minister Susana Muhamad teared up as she joined in the attacks on Benedetti. 'As a feminist, I cannot sit at the same table as Armando Benedetti,' she said, in apparent reference to an allegation of domestic violence made against the cabinet chief. Benedetti studied his phone while he was being criticized. Petro recently reshuffled his cabinet as his administration struggles to rein in the fiscal deficit following lower-than-expected tax revenue amid weak economic growth. State TV eventually cut off the transmission to show a football match between the Colombian and Paraguayan youth teams. Amazon and SpaceX Want In on India's Satellite Internet Market Elon Musk Inside the Treasury Department Payment System Inside Elon Musk's Attack on the US Government The NFL's Flawed DEI Program Still Beats What Most Companies Are Doing The Internet Almost Killed Barnes & Noble, Then Saved It ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
