THIS is the moment ruthless Gulf Cartel chief “Machete” is arrested by cops at his wedding after being on the run for five years.
Brave Colombian cops swarmed the church Luis Daniel Santana Hernández, 24, was getting married in and arrested him as he was exchanging vows.
In a video released by the Colombian government, anti-cartel officers can be seen approaching Santana as he stands near the altar.
The drug chief – who’s dressed in a dark wedding suit with a white carnation on his lapel – smugly smiles as prosecutors tell him he was being arrested.
Several female family members begin shouting as he’s taken away while the woman believed to be his mother-in-law tries to claw him out of police hands.
Dubbed “Machete”, Santana has been on the run since 2017 and was believed to be holed up in a mountain hideout in the Colombian state of Antioquia.
He was apparently convinced the authorities had given up capturing him and emerged from his hideout to celebrate his marriage in a chapel in the small town of Uramita.
Colombian authorities accuse Santana of being the mastermind behind a streak of bloody murders committed by the Gulf Clan, Colombia’s largest and most brutal drug cartel.
They also claim he helped orchestrate arms supplies and drug trafficking.
“A prosecutor from the special directorate against criminal organisations presented Santana Hernández before a judge and charged him with conspiracy to commit an aggravated crime,” said the prosecutor’s office.
Santana denies all charges and is in jail while investigations continue.
Cartels remain a potent force in Colombia, which was home to Pablo Escobar and country is largest supplier of cocaine.
Last year, the government was able to shrink the amount of land used for coca plantations – the plant used to produce cocaine – by around 7 per cent but most of that has been nullified by cartels increasing productivity.
Most of the drug ends up in the US, Europe and Asia.
This comes as cartels have begun executing people who break coronavirus lockdown rules.
Armed groups have introduced their own bloody system of “justice” and quarantine in regions where infection rates are out of control.
The worrying news was revealed by experts from the campaign group Human Rights Watch (HRW).
To date, a least nine people have been killed for either refusing to adhere to the hardline restrictions or for daring to speak out against them.
Community leader Edison Leon was murdered after revealing a group called ‘La Mafia’ were forcing locals to staff a virus checkpoint in the region of Putumayo.
“I am not willing to continue sending my people to death,” he wrote to the local authorities just days before he was killed.
In another incident, two migrants from Venezuela were killed while drinking at a telephone repair shop.
