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Colombia Police Seize Grenades, Dozens of Guns Belonging to Dissidents

by Reuters

   bogota, colombia --

   Colombia's national police said Monday they confiscated an arsenal of
   weapons, including guns, grenades and a machine gun belonging to
   dissidents from the now-disbanded FARC rebel group.

   Though the Estado Mayor Central dissidents have rejected the 2016 peace
   deal signed by the FARC, they agreed to a recent cease-fire with the
   government of leftist President Gustavo Petro, who has promised to make
   peace or surrender deals with Colombia's armed groups.

   The arsenal of 33 guns, a M-60 machine gun, grenades, more than 30,000
   bullets and uniforms, was being transported in two vehicles found
   abandoned in Narino province, in southwestern Colombia.

   "The confiscated arsenal constitutes one of the most important blows in
   recent years," National Police Director-General Henry Armando Sanabria
   told journalists. "With this we avoid the strengthening of an armed
   group."

   The guns, made in the United States, Israel and Russia, were used and
   it remained to be established if they had been purchased on the black
   market or stolen from the military during attacks, Sanabria said.

   It was up to the government to decide if the movement of the arsenal
   constitutes a violation of the dissidents' cease-fire with the
   government, he added.

   Colombia's police seized 15,572 weapons during 2022. A Reuters
   investigation last year showed that Mexican drug cartels that buy
   cocaine from Colombia's varied armed groups sometimes trade
   high-powered weapons for shipments of drugs.