CDS Emissary Caught Because Of The Facebook Posts Of The Model He Slept With

"HEARST" for Borderland Beat 

The downfall of the Sinaloa Cartel emissary Brian Donaciano Olguín Verdugo, alias “El Pitt”, came in the form of a social media post made by a blonde model he was sleeping with while he was staying in the Colombian city of Cali.  

The Blonde Model & The Photograph 

"When he was in Cali, he often met with a blonde model. She joined him for several nights in the apartment he rented in a luxurious condominium building in the Jardín City area," said one of the investigators in the case.

They say that she convinced El Pitt to go on a romantic trip with her to visit the famous Cristo Rey statue, located in the Cerro de los Cristales (Hill of the Crystals). The statue is located in the small town of Los Andes, just outside the city of Cali. El Pitt agreed to go with her and he reportedly broke a number of his typical security protocols in order to make the trip work, including contacting her through non-encrypted messaging apps. 

While the two were visiting the statue they took various photos together while kissing and embracing. Just minutes after taking said photos, the blonde model uploaded them to her Facebook account. 

Within a few hours of her posting, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had identified the man in her photos as El Pitt and alerted the Colombian Anti-Narcotics Police to his current location. 

Based on the DEA’s tip, the Anti-Narcotics Police were able to locate El Pitt and they began trailing him during his outing with the blonde model. By following his movements, agents were able to locate the Jardín City apartment that he was renting for his stay in Cali. 

For the next 14 days, undercover agents trailed El Pitt as he moved about the city. He was seen visiting bars and luxurious restaurants. He was always driven to locations in armored cars and escorted by a litany of heavily armed bodyguards by his side at all times. 

Alleged law enforcement surveillance footage of El Pitt while he was inside his apartment.

Source: La Voz del Pueblo

Anti-Narcotics agents rented a location near El Pitt’s condo building and used it to surveil him, taking photographs of his activities within his apartment. Reporters at the newspaper El Tiempo say they were shown videos by these agents that show El Pitt and the blonde model spending time together in the master bedroom of his apartment.

Colombian police have released some of their surveillance photos from this time, as seen above, which shows a shirtless El Pitt leaning onto a woman in lilac color pants who is holding her smartphone. 

The Business Negotiations

Later, agents observed El Pitt as he went out to the balcony for a smoke while he spoke to his Colombian liaisons through an encrypted phone app. One of the photos they took of El Pitt as he was out on the balcony was later used to definitively identify him as the Sinaloa man they were looking for. 

The photo depicted his distinctive arm and abdomen tattoos which were key identifiers for the agents. The director of the National Police, General Jorge Luis Vargas said El Pitt is known as one of “the most important links between the FARC, of Ivan Mordisco and Gentil Duarte, and the Sinaloa Cartel.” 

Agents observed that on weekends, Pitt would travel out of the city of Cali to visit men in the towns of Cauca or Nariño in order to negotiate cocaine shipments. General Vargas said “He bought cocaine … with Dagoberto Ramos, Carlos Patiño and Jaime Martínez." 

The DEA and the Anti-Narcotics Police were able to document his negotiations and they noted that a part of the talks centered around not just the purity of the product but also whether payment for the shipments would come in the form of cash or firearms.

The Downfall

Over the course of their 14 day surveillance, agents were able to identify El Pitt’s routines, his local contacts and the number of bodyguards assigned to him. Based on these, agents carefully selected a specific time and location when they would swoop in for the arrest. 

The agents managed to find an opening when Pitt was staying inside his apartment and his entourage of bodyguards, for unspecified reasons, were unable to react to law enforcement movements. As law enforcement moved in, El Pitt himself reportedly noticed the strange movement of officers on the street level below his condo. He used the condo’s intercom and buzzed the building’s doorman, asking him what was going on. 

However, by that time it was far too late, and the man who answered the intercom at the front desk was actually an intelligence agent, simply posing as his doorman. The agent reassured El Pitt that the police in the area were simply on a routine patrol. Relieved by his answer, El Pitt ended his intercom call - just as police busted into his luxury apartment and began reading him the arrest warrant for extradition purposes, issued by a federal court. 

El Pitt allegedly tried to bribe the officers with one billion Colombian pesos in exchange for letting him go, which they evidently declined, and he was sent to heavily guarded jail where he will be held while his legal team attempts to fight the extradition order. 

Sometime later, El Pitt told the officers who handcuffed him that if he were in his home country of Mexico, an armed squad would have freed him within seconds of him being detained. 

Sources: El Tiempo Article 1, Article 2, Milenio, El Universal