Elusive "Memo Fantasma," Guillermo León Acevedo Captured in Bogota, Colombia

"Socalj for Borderland Beat"

For 30 years the identity of Memo Fantasma or Sebastián Colmenares remained hidden until an exhaustive investigation discovered that he lived in Madrid and is really Guillermo Acevedo. (Photo: Infobae)

The Colombian authorities confirmed on the afternoon of this Friday, June 25, the capture in Bogotá of Guillermo León Acevedo, also known by the aliases of 'Memo Fantasma' or the 'Invisible Paramilitary'. He is a well-known former member of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, accused of coordinating the drug trafficking operations of that organization.

He was captured along with two other members of his family circle and one other person and is accused of the crimes of illicit enrichment, aggravated criminal conspiracy, and money laundering related to operations carried out in Bogotá, Antioquia. and Córdoba.

It is worth noting that Acevedo was only linked to the AUC between 1998 and 2006, but his participation in the world of Colombian drug trafficking would be much deeper, finding its roots towards the end of Pablo Escobar's Medellín Cartel, in the early 1990s, according to the InSight Crime report with which journalist Jeremy McDermott exposed him to the eyes of the world.

According to this, “Memo Fantasma” would begin its career around the year 1992 when Escobar was in La Catedral jail. At that time, he was a 21-year-old young man living in the United States, receiving cocaine shipments from the Medellín Cartel under the direction of Fabio Ochoa Vasco, who was one of the most important members of the Cartel as he controlled the distribution of the drug. drugs in the North American country, which at that time was six or eight tons per month.

After the collapse of the Medellín Cartel, and the birth of the Oficina de Envigado, Ochoa and Acevedo would go on to the payroll of Diego Murillo Bejarano, alias 'Don Berna', allowing him to make his first contacts with the Mexican cartels and learn about the business of the international drug trafficking. That same chain of events, which was also able to initiate its own operation between Mexico and the United States, and even come into contact with key allies of 'Don Berna', the Castaño brothers, who would later form the AUC, who over the years began to see how their financing was increasingly dependent on the drug trafficking business.

The process of demobilization of these self-defense groups during the government of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, revealed the names of several drug traffickers who until then had been operating in hiding. Such was the case of Don Berna, who took advantage of the Santa Fe de Ralito peace process to sneak into the paramilitary structure and thus obtain the benefits of having signed the peace; and Sebastián Colmenares, an alias that for years remained without a proper name for the Colombian authorities.

Guillermo Acevedo lived in Madrid where he has real estate companies and numerous luxurious properties. (Courtesy Insight Crime)

This person, according to different sources, such as Peter Vincent, a member of the United States Department of Justice, was in charge of managing the drug trafficking operations of the Bloque Central Bolívar of the AUC but disappeared from all radars once the Ralito process was completed. The mystery dissipated in 2015, when the journalist Ana María Cristancho managed to confirm that Colmenares was, in effect, 'Memo Fantasma'.

The person who denounced him that year was José Germán Sena Pico, alias 'Nico', before the Justice and Peace courts. He pointed out that 'Memo Fantasma' was the second person after 'Macaco' in the Central Bolívar Bloc. "The name, because I was with him, I had to be with him as a human courier, I was with him from the hand, his name is Guillermo Camacho”, stated 'Nico' before the judge who questioned him, assuring that that name did not exist in any database. 'Nico' replied: "Well, his badge was always 'Sebastián Colmenares' or 'Memo Fantasma'.

Later, it was another woman identified by InSight Crime as 'Zara', who was finally able to identify the mysterious criminal with his real name Guillermo León Acevedo Giraldo, who did appear in Colombian databases as a shareholder of the Bogotá-based company Inversiones ACEM SA. Using ACEM SA as a front, 'Memo' began to make a name for himself in the real estate business, even becoming a partner in Hitos Urbanos, the company of the current vice president of Colombia, Marta Lucía Ramírez and her husband Álvaro Rincón.

Regarding this fact, which occurred in 2006, the Vice President said that at that time Guillermo Acevedo had a judicial background scan carried out and absolutely nothing appeared to indicate any criminal activity. She has also said that she does not know that character and her own husband collaborated with the investigation that exposed the name of the drug ghost.

After being caught eating in a restaurant in the Colombian capital, which allowed many of his former associates in prison to identify him, it was learned of Acevedo's life in Madrid, Spain, where he established companies and has properties in luxurious sectors of the city, without being associated with any of the crimes of his past. That is, until this June 25, when the Colombian authorities were finally able to apprehend him.

Sources:

Infobae

Insight Crime