Agents from Colombia’s Dirección de Antinarcóticos (Counternarcotics Directorate), the National Police unit known as DIRAN, working alongside Interpol and the Ontario Provincial Police, took Arif Jhuman, 40, into custody July 8 at a Smart Fit (B3: SMFT3) location inside the El Tesoro shopping mall, in the comuna 14 sector of El Poblado.

Jhuman, who used the alias Gillani, was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice tied to charges in both Canada and the United States. In Tampa, Florida, the US Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida unsealed an indictment on December 10, 2025, charging Jhuman along with four other men — Tyler Corbin, Edward Noel, Alfredo Santana and Omar Singateth — with conspiracy to traffic firearms, trafficking in firearms and dealing firearms without a license. Prosecutors said the group trafficked and conspired to traffic more than 100 firearms from Florida into Canada during 2023 and 2024; of those, authorities recovered 29 at Canadian crime scenes, including homicides. US Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe’s office brought the case under Operation Take Back America, a Justice Department initiative targeting transnational criminal organizations.

🚨‼️Medellín no es refugio de criminales.

En una operación conjunta entre la Dirección de Antinarcóticos de la Policía Nacional, en coordinación con Interpol y agencias internacionales fue capturado en Medellín Arif Jhuman, alias “Gillani”, ciudadano canadiense requerido por… pic.twitter.com/ohjweapEch

— Fico Gutiérrez (@FicoGutierrez) July 9, 2026

Ontario Provincial Police first sought Jhuman in April 2023, when they said he had gone unlawfully at large after breaching parole granted during a nine-year, 11-month sentence for drug trafficking. Jhuman was known to frequent Toronto before he disappeared. Colombian authorities said he entered the country using false documents; he had been living in Medellín since 2025.

Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez announced the arrest, describing it as the product of coordinated intelligence work among Colombian, Canadian and international agencies. “We work hand in hand with national and international authorities to close off routes for transnational criminal structures. There is authority, intelligence and cooperation here to find them and bring them before the law,” Gutiérrez wrote.

Colombian investigators are also examining a possible link between Jhuman and a British organized-crime network dismantled in Medellín in late 2025, according to El Colombiano. Three UK nationals — Christopher Neil Costello, known as Dips; Robert Steven Taylor; and Liam George Anton O’Brien — were captured in the same comuna 14 sector in November and December 2025 on drug trafficking charges tied to a group Colombian authorities have connected to the Clan del Golfo, which allegedly moved narcotics into England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. Preliminary intelligence suggests Jhuman may have provided logistical support for arms and drug shipments moving through the US and Canada toward that network, Colombian investigators said, though the connection remains under investigation.

Colombian authorities have not disclosed a timeline for Jhuman’s legal proceedings or a possible extradition to the United States, where he faces the firearms trafficking case. His arrest was the 27th capture of a foreign fugitive in Colombia so far in 2026 on narcotics- and weapons-related charges, according to El Colombiano.

Photo courtesy Ontario Provincial Police.

According to the plea agreements and other court documents, from 2016 until 2023, Gonzalez-Ortiz established and led a drug trafficking organization in Colombia responsible for transporting cocaine via commercial airplanes. Conspirators loaded the commercial aircraft with cocaine disguised in boxes of fruit at Alfonso Bonilla Aragón International Airport in Cali, Colombia, and intended for Gustavo Rojas Pinilla International Airport in San Andrés Island, Colombia. With the assistance of corrupt Colombian police officers, the conspirators unloaded the cocaine. Then, they smuggled it by boat to Nicaragua, Honduras, Mexico, and the United States.

From 2016 until 2023, Gonzalez-Ortiz’s organization smuggled cocaine onto at least 27 commercial flights in Cali, totaling at least 43,000 kilograms.

From 2021 to 2023, Aldana-Gil worked on behalf of Gonzalez-Ortiz for all logistical aspects of the smuggling operation from Cali. He received truckloads of cocaine from other conspirators, transported the drugs to the airport, and paid an airport security supervisor to divert security cameras away from the airport’s external gates. He also hired and paid the conspirators responsible for altering the cargo manifests, as well as the luggage cart drivers who loaded the drugs onto commercial aircraft. On July 29, 2023, one of the organization’s cocaine shipments was interdicted by the Colombian National Police after it was offloaded from a commercial aircraft in San Andrés Island.

This prosecution is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Strike Force Initiative, which provides for the establishment of permanent multi-agency task force teams that work side-by-side in the same location. This co-located model enables agents from different agencies to collaborate on intelligence-driven, multi-jurisdictional operations to disrupt and dismantle the most significant drug traffickers, money launderers, gangs, and transnational criminal organizations.

The specific mission of the OCDETF Panama Express Strike Force is to disrupt and dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations involved in large-scale drug trafficking, money laundering, and related activities. The OCDETF Panama Express Strike Force comprises agents and officers from the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and Homeland Security Investigations, and the prosecution is being led by the Office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.

Valuable assistance was provided by the Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs, the Colombian National Police’s Dirreccion de Antinarcotics (DIRAN), and the Colombian Equipo de Trabajo Investigativo Control Aeronaves (ETICA). This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David J. Pardo.

Photo credit: Office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida.