Confessions of a Colombian drug assassin

In a sparsely furnished but tidy flat in a pleasant, middle-class neighbourhood in the city of Medellin, Colombia, a 24 year-old called Gustavo is telling me how he likes to spend his hard-won earnings.

Along with designer clothes and hi-tech Japanese motorbikes, he is a big fan of English Premiership football and he subscribes to cable television to watch all the matches he can.
 
‘I support Wigan because they have Colombian striker Hugo Rodallega,’ he says. ‘I appreciate that Manchester United play good football too. But I don’t like Arsenal.’

His dream job, he adds, would be ‘to be a police detective investigating murders’.

This last ambition could prove tricky. For when Gustavo isn’t dancing to salsa music – or politely offering his guests drinks – he is a paid assassin for one of Colombia’s most notorious cocaine traffickers.

In his homeland, he is known as a sicario – or a drug cartel hit man.

I was expecting someone butch, imposing, but with his bone-thin frame, boyish face and stooping posture, Gustavo cuts a far from threatening figure.

Indeed, his demeanour is so warm and friendly that I keep forgetting that I am talking to a man who has murdered more people than he can count and who continues to kill for money.

Sicarios such as Gustavo are wreaking havoc across Latin America.
 
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