Cocaine, alleged contributions to campaigns of congressmen and local leaders, coal mines, investment in casinos, crimes and disappearances.
Two Colombians who have had recent contacts with FBI agents have been providing information according to which there is a powerful transnational mafia organization that has been operating for at least a decade. on the border between Colombia and Venezuela. They even attribute much of the political, financial and criminal power of that area of the country to him without even being mentioned in the criminal mapping carried out by intelligence agencies.
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The four files
The journalist Cristian Herrera and Luis Miguel Osorio Chacín, murdered in Cúcuta. Photo:Social networks
They call their leader ‘the Pharaoh’, a powerful Colombian-Venezuelan businessman who EL TIEMPO had already mentioned in September 2024 after a shooting at a prestigious school in Cúcuta where rancher Luis Miguel Osorio Chacín and his 14-year-old son were shot with rifles.
At the time it was about establishing Yes, Osorio Chacín is the same one who was being investigated in Venezuela for a shipment of cocaine seized in a truck with cheese.
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The alias ‘El Pharaoh’ began to circulate again on June 6 after a hitman from the criminal gang ‘La Familia P’, murdered journalist Cristian Herrera, who had been investigating the crime of Osorio Chacín and entrenched corruption networks in Cúcuta, in its metropolitan area and in at least three other departments.
Officially, the Attorney General’s Office assures that there is already a special commission to investigate the crime and that the capture of three people – alias Demonio, ‘Angélica’ and ‘Wilmer’ – is the first step so that the murder of Herrera, who worked for the Foundation for Freedom of the Press (Flip), does not go unpunished.
Moment when several people help those injured in the attack. Photo:Private file
But unofficially in Cúcuta, brave colleagues who are also threatened with death, businessmen and social leaders, told EL TIEMPO that, if they want to reach the intellectual authors, It is time to move forward in the investigation against alias El Pharaón, whom they identify as the new ‘Pablo Escobar’ of Norte de Santander.
EL TIEMPO learned about sections of the information that has been given to federal agentsin which it is ensured that, to reach ‘the Pharaoh’ and his criminal structure, at least 4 judicial files that are ongoing in the Prosecutor’s Office must be reviewed.
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This newspaper investigated and established One of these is about the disappearance of the legal representative of a coal company in Barranquilla that registered exports of that mineral to the United Kingdom.
The second is for the murder of also coal merchant César Flórez, executed in June 2024, in Cúcuta.
And another open file is that of the murder of his attorney and also human rights defender Fabio Ortega.
Party and cocaine
Businessman César Flórez, murdered in the Caobos neighborhood, Cúcuta, in June 2024. Photo:Private file
And there is a fourth trial for the crime in Barranquilla last May of the casino businessman Juan Camilo López España. This murder at the hands of hitmen who got out of a truck with a rifle led a group of businessmen from that sector to ask the authorities to review the money movements of a chain of casinos with offices in Bogotá, Barranquilla and Cúcuta, who would be linked to people who are linked to the businessman whom they point out to be ‘El Faraón’, an alias that appears in several of Cristian Herrera’s reporting notebooks.
The common thread of the series of murders are several businesses that were sealed in games of luck and chance and in the mining sector with a man whom they identify as ‘David V’.
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It is the same one to whom they attribute links with criminal networks (including ‘the Aragua Train’, the ‘AK-47’ and a stronghold of ‘the Rastrojos’) and the celebration of a big party in a penthouse, whose coordinates the Prosecutor’s Office already has.
They say that the ostentatious meeting was attended by several politicians from the region and (in a private room where only a handful of guests entered) contributions to campaigns would have been made through third parties whom researchers are already tracking.
The mine and the allies
Cristian Herrera’s trill about the northern senator from Santander Photo:Supplied
That building is where dispatches ‘the Pharaoh’who moves in a high-end armored truck without plates in the border between Colombia and Venezuela and who also holds meetings from several cabins in the Bavaria sector, in Cúcuta.
Furthermore, it is ensured that it always goes escorted by about 10 men that they would be part of a security company of that city.
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One of the partygoers told THE TIME that several politicians and the businessman José Gregorio Arias Rojas, a native of San Antonio de Táchira (Venezuela), would have attended this.
This newspaper found it as substitute representative of a casino company and also as a shareholder of a firm that owns coal mines.
Hitmen and organizers of the crime of journalist Cristian Herrera. Photo:Prosecutor’s Office
Sources from the Prosecutor’s Office assured that his name was also mentioned in a statement that is included in one of the files presented.
Because of that mention, EL TIEMPO called him at the telephone numbers that appear in the companies in which he appears. And he left messages with one of his assistants and with the manager of the casino in Bogotá. But at the time of going to press, he had not responded to calls made by two journalists from this publishing house.
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In that same statement that the Prosecutor’s Office collected, they are asking that a version be investigated according to which ‘the Pharaoh’ had dispossessed several properties and a mine from a family from Cúcuta that had done business selling coal with him.
In the same confidential document, to which EL TIEMPO had exclusive access, it is stated that one of the shipments from the mine with which ‘El Pharaoh’ would have been left, arrived contaminated with cocaine in Switzerland.
Cocaine shipment. Reference photo. Photo:Private file
But there is also evidence of cocaine movements to the Dominican Republic, to pass it to the United States.
It is also being requested to verify whether a relative of the noted capo would be a senior member of the Venezuelan Army to whom they are linked. with the ‘Suns poster’. For this reason, there is great interest from the FBI in the information that is being provided.
The response from China
Coalmine. Reference photo. Photo:CAR
Sources consulted on the border told EL TIEMPO that Cristian Herrera was investigating a group of politicians from the northern capital of Santander and their possible connections with drug trafficking.
And in that context the name of ‘the Pharaoh’ arose again, which EL TIEMPO omits until he is prosecuted in Colombia or the United States.
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One of the assumptions mentioned is the elected representative to the Chamber for the Liberal party, Luis Ariel Rodríguez Beltrán, a native of Cúcuta, who managed to obtain 53,600 votes in the last elections.
Rodríguez Beltrán had already been elected deputy in the Departmental Assembly of Norte de Santander for the period 2024-2027.
Ariel Rodríguez – northern Santander congressman Photo:taken from the networks video
EL TIEMPO called him insistently to find out his version of the accusations against him. And he finally managed to locate him in China where he said he was by official invitation, analyzing beneficial projects for his region.
Although he did not answer whether or not he knew alias ‘El Pharaón’ and if he has been requested by any authority in the United States or Colombia, he began by pointing out that he assumed that EL TIEMPO was looking for him for what he described “defamations that an observer and some informal media have been making.”
In this regard, he assured that it has been falsely indicated that he is being investigated for homicide and extortion: “I already hired a law firm who asked the Attorney General’s Office to certify whether that was true. And the Prosecutor’s Office certified me, through an official letter DAUITA-20310 dated February 26, 2026, that it was not linked to any of those criminal proceedings.”
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And he added that his attorneys have requested, without luck, retractions of the case.
“Consequently, a guardianship was filed and, by means of a second instance ruling, a court Circuit Criminal Court, on May 11, protected my rights and ordered those slanderous and false publications to be removed and retracted,” said Rodríguez Beltrán. And he mentioned that he filed additional actions for contempt.
The case of Cristian
Murder of Cristian Herrera. Photo:Private file
According to the congressman, also He asked for rectification from other media that linked him to criminal organizations and that, according to him, tendentiously insinuated his intervention in the crime of Cristian Herrera.
In this regard, he pointed out that the murdered journalist did not even have complaints or complaints against him: “I have never had any kind of intervention in criminal acts.”
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And, finally, he pointed out that according to other publications, Cristian Herrera’s death apparently occurred due to his complaints against criminal gangs: “Among them, that of a certain Mr. Porras. Therefore, based on what the Prosecutor’s Office has investigated, everything that is circulating on networks is nothing more than a baseless smear campaign.”.
EL TIEMPO also called the brother of a local leader who is being linked to the case and the alleged couple alias the Pharaoh. But at the time of going to press they had not responded to the messages.
Cucuta Photo:Cucuta
Now, to the concern that the journalist’s crime will go unpunished, Added to this is the fact that his wife, Karla Niño, has reported that she has made several requests to the National Protection Unit (UNP) to extend the scheme to her family, but they were ignored.
She was by his side the day he was murdered.. He was unprotected because he had given his escorts the day off and he was not planning to leave the house.
Niño has also said that the bullets could have come from anywhere because the threats in Cristian Herrera’s journalistic life were a constant: “He carried out investigations related to criminal gangs, public order, corruption and politics in the region.”
The freshest information about ‘the Pharaoh’ is that, after the crime of journalist Herrera, he left the country. But his family’s businesses and investigations continue in Colombia.
INVESTIGATIVE UNIT
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