Featured Image Credit: Policía Magdalena Medio
Topics: True crime, Crime, Sex and Relationships
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: True crime, Crime, Sex and Relationships
Columbia police have revealed they've arrested someone on suspicion of being a hitwoman employed by a criminal gang.
The Departamento de Policía Magdalena Medio took to social media on December 1 to reveal it had arrested a woman - reports varying as to whether she's 22 years old or 23 - on suspicion of being an infamous hitwoman known as 'La Muñeca' a.k.a. 'The Doll'.
The police's post claims the woman - named as Karen Julieth Ojeda Rodríguez - was 'caught red-handed with a firearm in Barranca Bermeja'.
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A 9mm handgun is also shown in the footage, having been taken into custody for possession and reported as being put through ballistics tests to prove whether or not it's connected to certain criminal activity.
Two other people are reported by VICE as also being arrested - an associate known as 'Leopoldo' and another, 24-year-old Paula Valentina Joya Rueda who allegedly calls herself Gorda Sicaria, or 'Fat Hitwoman'.
It's reported Rodríguez began her alleged career as a hitwoman at the age of 18 and has spent the past several years building a small network of hitmen in Barrancbermeja, a municipality and city in Colombia.
Rodriguez is accused of carrying out several murders for a gang known as Los de la M amid an alleged ongoing battle for the control of drug trafficking in the area.
She is also accused of being involved in the death of an ex-partner named Deyvy Jesús García Palomino on July 23 earlier this year, as per LibertadDigital.
Palomino - known as 'Orejas' or 'Ears' - is reported by the outlet as having been ambushed by two people on motorbikes and later discovered with bullet wounds.
He was then rushed to hospital where he later passed away.
Rodríguez and Rueda have reportedly been charged with aggravated homicide.
Lieutenant Colonel Mauricio Herrera said the arrests are 'important results in combatting murder,' as quoted by CBS News.
Academic and criminal organization specialist Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera told NBC News: "Sometimes, criminal organizations offer some women the opportunity to develop a leadership scheme.
"And since prejudice and machismo make them invisible in some way — they can advance in those activities without being seen. And that is one thing that we have to increasingly understand."
UNILAD has contacted the Departamento de Policía Magdalena Medio for comment.