The murder of criminal lawyer Luisa Fernanda Ramírez Bejarano in the municipality of Jamundí generated commotion both in the judicial field and in the sports community, due to her connection with the defense of high-profile drug traffickers and her relationship with the vice president of the Colombian Skating Federation, Jorge Roldán Pérez.
The authorities are investigating whether her work as a defender of people accused of serious crimes, including alias Tánatoscould be related to the motive of the crime.
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On the night of Thursday, November 20, Ramírez Bejarano, 40, was driving his vehicle in the El Rosario neighborhood of Jamundí, Valle del Cauca, when was intercepted by two men on a motorcycle.
The hitmen shot him repeatedly, which caused the lawyer to lose control of the car and crash into the facade of a commercial establishment.
The victim died at the scene due to the impacts of the bullets. The vehicle in which he was traveling had plates QJR953. According to the official report, There were no previous records of threats against him.
The commander of the Cali Metropolitan Police, Brigadier General Henry Yesid Bello Cubides, confirmed that the lawyer represented several clients investigated for criminal conduct.among them a drug trafficker known as alias Tánatos, whose real name is Jesús Hugo Verdugo Chávez.
“He was defending different people who have committed criminal conduct, among them, a drug trafficker known as alias Tánatos, who was extradited in 2021. This criminal had been captured by the National Police. She defended several citizens, had several processes”, declared General Bello Cubides.
The figure of alias Tánatos is central to the investigation. According to authorities, Verdugo Chávez was a powerful drug trafficker linked to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel.responsible for designing a logistics system to export large quantities of cocaine to the United States.
His organization used routes in the Colombian Pacific, in which the drugs were packed in fast boats and semi-submersibles equipped with advanced technology. “They could reference the point where they were passing and the exact time of arrival with the load, which was between eight hundred kilos and a ton and a half of cocaine”they indicated in the Dijín of the National Police.
Alias Tánatos was initially captured in 2018 by the Anti-Narcotics Police, although in 2020 an operation was carried out against his properties and those of his associates, resulting in the occupation of 69 assets valued at 40,000 million pesos.
“The affected assets are located in Jamundí (Valle del Cauca); Patía, Timbío, Santander de Quilichao and Popayán (Cauca); Córdoba, Ipiales, Sandoná and Tumaco (Nariño); and Valle del Guamuez (Putumayo), towns where, according to investigations, the criminal organizations alias Tánatos and Llanos Cortés had influence,” the Prosecutor’s Office explained at that time.
Verdugo Chávez’s past includes his militancy as a guerrilla member of the 30th front of the extinct FARC. For this reason, the Special Peace Justice accepted his involvement in the process along with other ex-combatants.
However, in 2021, the court authorized his extradition to the United States upon verifying that he continued to commit crimes. During the time he remained under the benefit of house arrest, the authorities determined that he continued to lead the criminal network. The organization used diversionary tactics, such as sending decoy boats with smaller quantities of drugs to divert the attention of security forces, while the main shipment was transported by another route.
Ramírez Bejarano’s crime provoked rejection from various sectors. The National Skating Federation, as well as departmental leagues such as Norte de Santander and Envigado, Antioquia, expressed their solidarity with the victim’s family. Entities such as Indervalle and the Department’s Secretariat for Women, Gender Equality and Sexual Diversity also expressed their condemnation and recalled the importance of reporting any form of gender violence.
Commander Bello Cubides reported that the Police and the Attorney General’s Office are working together to clarify the facts and find those responsible. As part of the institutional response, the ‘Shielding Plan’ was activated, which includes mobile checkpoints and patrols at different points in Cali and Jamundí.
“We are moving forward together with the Prosecutor’s Office to clarify this criminal conduct. With the ‘Shielding Plan’ we are carrying out these actions with mobile checkpoints in different parts of the city and also in the municipality of Jamundí to achieve the capture of the aggressors.“said the general.
The night of the lawyer’s murder was also marked by another armed attack in the Recanto neighborhood, opposite Gran Colombia, in the Alfaguara sector, in which two civilians were injured, whose identity and state of health have not been confirmed. The Jamundí community has expressed concern about the increase in crime in the area.
Gender defenders have condemned the murder of Ramírez Bejarano and other acts of violence against women in the region and the country. The authorities reiterate the availability of attention and reporting lines for victims of gender violence, such as national line 155, the numbers of the Attorney General’s Office and the Purple Patrol of the Cali Metropolitan Police.
