RIO DE JANEIRO—Colombia has dismantled its big drug cartels and captured high-living kingpins but police say the small, low-profile groups that have taken their place are harder to track down and can be more dangerous.
Army troops this week captured Diego Montoya, accused of running the powerful Norte del Valle cartel, in a raid on a humble farm, the government's biggest blow in the drugs war in at least a decade.
But the collapse of major drug gangs like the Medellin and Cali cartels that were infamous in the 1990s has opened up the market to smaller groups.
"We now have sort of small family clans instead. And the drug traffickers have changed," Rafael Parra, deputy chief of Colombia's National Police, told Reuters at a Latin American security conference in Rio de Janeiro late on Tuesday.
"Instead of parading their extravagances like lavish mansions, clothes, the women that escorted them, the cars they drove—all things that drew attention—today we have an adversary with a different, low profile and that has made our work much more difficult."
Despite billions of dollars in U.S. aid aimed at stamping out the business, Colombia is still the main supplier of cocaine to the United States and Europe, exporting about 600 metric tons every year as small gangs filled the void left by the large cartels.
"Also, the fact they are small doesn't mean they produce less violence and conflicts, on the contrary," Parra said, although he predicted a sharp 25 percent drop in cocaine trafficking from Colombia this year.
The United States has formally requested the extradition of Montoya, the Colombian government said on Wednesday. He is expected to be sent north to face drug, money laundering and murder charges before the end of the year.
"It's like the beginning of an end of those myths about the great drug 'capos' (bosses)," Parra said of Montoya's capture.
Although the war on drugs is far from over, Colombia has made significant strides in reducing violent crime—an experience that its bigger neighbor Brazil is keen to learn from, especially in crime-ridden Rio de Janeiro where drug gangs control many of the city's 600-plus slums.
Rio has one of Latin America's highest murder rates at nearly 40 per 100,000 people, more than double that of Bogota, which had rates of around 80 per 100,000 in the early 1990s.
"They need frontal attacks on violent spots, after which police, the authorities, need to remain there. There is no point in getting in and then leaving," said Colombia's former police chief Jorge Castro.
Rights groups often criticize Rio police for launching rough military-style raids on slums and then withdrawing, allowing gangs to quickly retake their turf.
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