Sinaloa Cartel Suspect Arrested in Colombia Thanks to His Date’s Facebook Pics

An alleged Sinaloa Cartel emissary sent to Colombia to negotiate cocaine shipments was arrested last week in the city of Cali after his girlfriend posted a selfie of them together on her Facebook page.

Brian Donaciano Olguín “El Pitt” was allegedly an envoy of the legendary Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, according to Colombia’s National Police. 

Olguín, who is Mexican, and his girlfriend, identified only as a Colombian blonde model, entered the country on Feb. 18 via Bogotá and kept moving cities along with a group of armed men, police said. 

Colombian police working with the U.S’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said that Olguín’s task was to meet with former guerrilla FARC members in the country’s south to negotiate and test the quality of a huge cocaine shipment destined for Mexico and eventually the U.S.

After one of the meetings, Olguín allegedly returned to his girlfriend in the city of Cali and she convinced him to go visit Los Cristales, a tourist spot in a mountain with a giant Christ on its peak. 

“Breaking all security protocols, including using only encrypted apps, the model convinced him to take a selfie kissing in front of Los Cristales mountain,” a source inside the police unit that nabbed Olguín told Colombian newspaper El Tiempo. “She immediately posted the photo on her Facebook account.” 

When the image was published, Colombian police and DEA agents tracked Olguín to an exclusive residential area where he was staying with his girlfriend. 

In a surveillance photo taken prior to his arrest and shared by Colombia’s National Police, Olguín is seen shirtless, lying in bed with his girlfriend. The tattoos visible on his chest and right arm apparently helped the authorities identify him. 

Early next morning, Colombia’s elite police and DEA agents swooped in to nab him. Olguín called the building’s security team to ask him about the presence of uniformed officers around his apartment, but he was captured before he could hang up the phone.

“Agents then proceeded to read him his rights and notify him of his extradition order by the California South District Office,” Colombian National Police wrote in a press release. Olguín had an Interpol red warrant for his arrest active in 196 countries for drug trafficking, according to Colombian authorities. 

The alleged trafficker reportedly offered Colombian policemen a billion Colombian pesos (around $265,000) in cash to let him go and told them, “If I was in Mexico, I would have already been freed by a group of armed men,” according to El Tiempo’s investigation. 

Authorities did not disclose what happened to the Colombian model, but there were no reports of her arrest.