After months of monitoring, which included undercover agents, the Police Department, in collaboration with the FBI, managed to establish that a couple of Mexican citizens, who regularly visited Colombia, was really the representative of the bloodthirsty Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel in the country.
From the beginning of 2024, they added several incomes to the country and it began to be established that they were staying in luxurious hotels in Cartagena and Barranquilla, where they spent short periods of time. But their movements began to coincide with the departure of several tons of drugs to Costa Rica, which federal agencies had been tracking.
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‘Red Spear’
La ‘Patrona’ and ‘Pau’ were captured in Barranquilla. Photo:Supplied
It is now known that the two Mexicans, identified as Sophia Mourra Lozano, alias La Patrona, and Adolfo Paulín González, alias Pau, were the contacts of the Mexican cartel with the ‘Gulf clan’ to send drug shipments to Costa Rica, from where they left for the United States and Europe, by sea.
For this reason, they were captured last week within the transnational operation ‘Red Lance’, which had the support of United States anti-mafia agencies.
The Investigative Unit of EL TIEMPO had access to the file and one of the investigators of the case and established that the couple changed their appearance with costumes and assumed different roles to avoid being identified.
The woman, 52 years old and originally from Torreón (Mexico), first claimed that she was a real estate agent and that He visited Colombia regularly to buy properties for foreign clients.
But, when they were intercepted by the Police in Riomar, an exclusive neighborhood of Barranquilla, gave a version that surprised the investigators.
“At the time we captured them, alias Pau assured us that they were Christians and that they were looking for the best church in Colombia to congregate”explained one of the officers who participated in the operation.
In fact, it is now being reviewed whether, to maintain that facade, The Mexican couple established contact with members of recognized Christian churches in Bogotá.
The track is a house in the Las Ferias sector, where they arrived after passing immigration controls without knowing that they were being monitored by the Police.
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The House in Bogotá
The bosses were followed by intelligence agents since they entered the country. Photo:Private file
“At the Bogotá airport, members of the ‘Gulf clan’ picked them up and took them to a house in the Las Ferias neighborhood, in Engativá. There they located them in a property where they stayed for two or three days, from where they coordinated their movement to Barranquilla,” the researcher explained.
This newspaper had exclusive access to several of the photographs taken by the intelligence agents, in which they are seen passing through immigration controls and waiting to receive their suitcases.
In another of the photographs, alias Pau is seen talking to another subject next to a white van, who they are trying to locate to establish if he was the one who took them to the house in the Las Ferias neighborhood.
It is estimated that in two years, using the same modus operandi, the structure For which the couple worked, at least 15 tons of cocaine were seized in international waters, which coincided with the dates of their entry into the country.
In fact, it is known that On their most recent trip they were preparing a special shipment.
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The Ship
Photographs of the surveillance carried out on alias Pau in Barranquilla. Photo:Private file
Anti-mafia agents documented that, last October, the couple had met with several members of the ‘Gulf clan’ to coordinate the shipment of a ton of cocaine to Costa Rica.
“The plan was that a cargo ship that they had already outlined, and that was going to leave the port of Barranquilla en route to Costa Rica, would be intercepted out to sea by fishing boats, from which other members of the organization were going to jump onto the ship with the packages of cocaine on their backs. They call that ‘miqueo’”explained the researcher.
And he added that to carry out this operation they necessarily had to coordinate with the ship’s crew, which is another line of research that they are reviewing.
For this reason, EL TIEMPO omits the data of the vessel and its flag, who are being tracked, as well as the people who appear in the couple’s tracking photographs in both Bogotá and Barranquilla.
The one who moved the most was Adolfo Paulín González, 56 years old and born in Toluca (Mexico). He appears in tracking photos smoking near the Barranquilla hotel while waiting for instructions.
And although the investigators believed that they were going to find some clues about the payments in the Mexicans’ luggage of cocaine shipments and their links in Colombia, ended up getting a surprise.
In the search of the room of the exclusive hotel in Barranquilla where The Mexican couple was staying, there were no Bibles or chamandulas.
“What was found were several makeup kits, wigs and hair extensions that the woman used to change her appearance and perhaps avoid control by the authorities,” the researcher explained.
That would explain why she lost track sometimes.
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To The Pillory
The wigs of alias La Patrona. Photo:Private file
For now, alias La Patrona and ‘Pau’ are in La Picota prison in Bogotá, while the International Affairs Directorate of the Attorney General’s Office completes the corresponding procedures for his extradition to the United States, where a process for drug trafficking is already open.
His case, however, does not stop there. Investigators of operation ‘Red Lance’ They told this newspaper that a second part of this same investigation is planned for the coming weeks.
This time, the transnational operation will extend to Costa Rica, Mexico, the United States and other cities in Colombia to capture other members of the organization, who would have had direct contact with the couple detained in Barranquilla.
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CJNG’s businesses in Colombia
Fredy Chacón del Real, alias El Mexicano Photo:EL TIEMPO/ Private Archive
With the capture of aliases La Patrona and ‘Pau’, drug trafficking links are further uncovered that are being woven between the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG) and the ‘Gulf clan’.
Intelligence reports have already assured that the Colombian armed group It works as the seller of high-purity cocaine to international cartels, as well as an office to receive the bosses in Colombia.
In addition to Barranquilla, Medellín would also be one of the places to whom bosses of the Jalisco New Generation cartel arrive to seal their negotiations.
Indeed, on September 28, the authorities captured Fredy Chacón, alias el Mexicano, in an exclusive complex in El Poblado.
The subject is identified as an articulator of the CJNG and allegedly paid up to $15,000 a month to members of the criminal gang ‘la Terraza’. substructures of the ‘Gulf clan’ to offer protection with armored vehicles and escorts.
And in April a network of five Colombians fell who sold shipments of cocaine to the cartel from Cauca and Valle del Cauca.
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