Daniel Rendón Herrera

Rendón Herrera once led the Los Gaitanistas drug trafficking paramilitary gang, formerly known as Auto-defensas Gaitanistas (Gaitanist Self-Defence Group), and founding member of the "Los Urabeños" criminal gang.

Biography

Rendón Herrera was born in 1966 in Antioquia to a poor family, one of 14 children. One of his brothers is former paramilitary leader Freddy Rendón-Herrera, alias "El Aleman" ("The German")

Daniel Rendón Herrera was second in command, after his brother, of the Elmer Cárdenas block of the ACCU (Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá), a paramilitary group that belonged to the AUC (United Self Defense Forces of Colombia). He was friend of Carlos Castaño Gil, who was the top commander of the AUC; and in his honor named one of his organizations, called Heroes of Castaño, that later became a block of a new narco-paramilitary organization, created by himself, the AGC (Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia), in which took command of 400 men in the Urabá region, and controlled the drug traffic, through alliances made with the guerrillas.