Search Bloc

[1] The original Search Bloc was created in 1986 by President Virgilio Barco with the sole objective of apprehending drug lord Pablo Escobar and his associates.

[2][3][4] Over 600 Search Bloc members received training from the Colombian army and were specially selected to be impervious to police corruption from the drug cartels.

The Search Bloc was revived in 2004 to root out cocaine and heroin traffickers in southwest Colombia.

The new Search Bloc was tasked with taking apart the Norte del Valle cartel and arresting its leader, Diego León Montoya Sánchez, which it did successfully in 2007.

In 2007, the Colombian government again ordered the creation of a new Search Bloc against the Águilas Negras, or Black Eagles, classified as a gang of former paramilitaries.

Members of Colonel Martinez's Search Bloc celebrate over Pablo Escobar 's body on December 2, 1993. Escobar's death ended a sixteen-month effort that cost hundreds of millions of dollars.