It positioned itself as the chief mediator and debt collector in drug trafficking disputes and maintained major connections with Colombian paramilitaries and guerillas.
[5] La Oficina eventually evolved into a sizable narco-trafficking operation spanning from Medellín to the northern coast of Colombia, including the Panamanian border area, drawing many of its leaders from former Colombian paramilitary blocs.
[4] After the AUC demobilised in 2005, Murillo was arrested for the murder of a local politician, although he managed to run his empire from prison and made a deal with the authorities to use his power to keep violence to a minimum.
[7] On July 20, 2014, Hernán Alonso Villa, better known as El Ratón (The Mouse), was stopped en route to one of his safe houses in the south-eastern province of Alicante carrying €40,000 (£31,660) in cash which, according to police, came from drug running and assassinations[8] Villa served as head of Oficina's military wing and was believed to have carried out 400 murders, and other criminal acts including disappearances, extortions and kidnappings.
[13][15] The arrests of these three individuals left Oficina de Evigado with only five remaining operatives and leaders still at large in the group's homeland of Medellín.
As such, it is perhaps the most complex example of the Colombian mafia today: a tangled web of service providers and subcontractors involved in everything from money laundering and the international cocaine trade to street level drug sales and micro-extortion.