Police kill Venezuela's most-wanted criminal
Three other gang members were killed alongside Tovar Colina, a wanted criminal.
CARACAS, May 4, 2016 (AFP) - Venezuelan police and special forces soldiers killed the country’s most-wanted criminal, gang leader Jose Antonio Tovar Colina, in a shootout Tuesday.
The shootout went down in the central town of El Sombrero, in a neighborhood where Tovar Colina and his gang led a reign of terror, Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez said.
Three other gang members were killed alongside Tovar Colina, who was wanted for multiple homicides, hired killings, robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking.
"The pursuit continues of the other members of this paramilitary gang, which has done so much damage to the country," said Gonzalez Lopez.
The success of the operation against Tovar Colina was a rare bit of good news for President Nicolas Maduro’s government, whose popularity has plunged in the face of a long-running economic crisis, food shortages, power blackouts and rampant crime.
Venezuela, which is ranked by the United Nations as one of the world’s most violent countries, registered 4,696 murders in the first quarter of the year, chief prosecutor Luisa Ortega, said, blaming the violence on organized crime.
