A 16-year-old boy found beheaded in Lleida, Tolima

The inhabitants of Lleida, Tolima, are shocked after last Saturday night, April 16, residents of the 7th of August neighborhood found a 16-year-old boy, known in the sector as' Mapache 'or 'Pañalito', decapitated.

The body of the young man, identified as Gerson Stiven García Barreiro, was found decapitated on the rainwater drainage of the August 7th area and the Lions Club, along with the other limbs of his body, as reported by local newspapers.

Some inhabitants of the sector assured the newspaper El Nuevo Día, that the minor had been seen on that Saturday morning prowling the place where he was found lifeless.

According to the deputy commander of the Tolima Police Department, Colonel Yorguin Malagón, preliminary investigations suggest that the murder of the young man would be related to the dispute of criminal gangs over the control of microtrafficking in that municipality.

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Next, Colonel Malagón assured that “all institutional capacities have been made available to find the whereabouts of those responsible for this regrettable event”, while calling on the community to hand over any information that would allow the capture and subsequent prosecution of the authors of crime.

This would become the second such case reported to the department in the last month. The first took place at the end of March in the San Felipe district, in the jurisdiction of Armero Guayabal, north of Tolima, where the community found a human head on a moisturizer.

The victim was identified as Álvaro González Ortegón, alias' Uribe ', who, according to the local newspaper El Nuevo Día, was a member of the criminal gang 'Los Botánicos', who were accused by the authorities of perpetrating 10 murders for 'account settings' due to microtrafficking in San Sebastián de Mariquita, in the year 2018.

Likewise, according to the Tolimense newspaper, the criminal group was investigated for being the 'armed arm' of 'Los de la firma', a criminal structure that, under the modality of 'drop by drop', made credits in so-called 'pots' or places where hallucinogenic substances were sold.

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In this regard, the deputy commander of the Tolima Police Department, Colonel Yorguin Malagón, told RCN Radio that, apparently, both the case of the municipality of Armero Guayabal and the most recent one in Lleida, would have connections with people who distribute drugs in the north of that region.

“These people (those responsible for the crimes) have been generating pressure on those who do not accede to their claims or on those who divert their criminal interests,” Colonel Malagón told the Bogota radio station, emphasizing that, for the time being, both cases are the subject of investigation.

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