Carlos Yorelmy Duarte Díaz, linked to the Úsuga Clan, heir to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia and the North Valley Cartel, was assassinated in Bogota. He served as a financier and discreet operator managing the flow of illicit capital. His assassination, just 50 meters from the Colombian Attorney General's office, is a warning sign for Argentina, as he laundered money in the country. Duarte Díaz was a key link between Colombian drug cartels and logistical and financial structures based in Argentina. In 2015, Argentine authorities dismantled a plan to export 46 tons of cocaine-impregnated rice to Africa under the cover of a UN program. This 'Narcoarroz' case highlights the need to map criminal financial flows and secure channels for recycling cocaine profits. Duarte Díaz's method was to invest in legal sectors in need of capital—bankrupt football clubs, municipal funeral services, port infrastructure, and agribusiness—where 'fresh money' faces less resistance. His company, International Trade and Commerce (ITC) S.A., invested $2.16 million in the El Porvenir football club, a move with no sporting logic but effective for money laundering. In 2015, documents for a $2 million crematory project in Villa Gobernador Gálvez were seized. Following the network's downfall, Williams Triana Peña was arrested in 2016, extradited, and sentenced in 2021 to seven years in prison. Thirteen members of the network were arrested, with eleven reportedly escaping, possibly through the Triple Frontier. Duarte Díaz, born in Colombia in 1973, arrived in Argentina in 2010. He illegally obtained an Argentine ID and created shell companies to launder drug money. His accomplices, Erman Triana Peña and Carlos Olmedo Silva Cárdenas, alias 'El Mono', remain at large. The primary hypothesis for the murder is a settling of accounts, with the assassination serving as a message to those who could compromise higher-ups in the criminal organization.
