Walter Patricio Arizala Vernaza (9 November 1989 – 21 December 2018) was an Ecuadorian drug trafficker and FARC dissident.
Biography[]
Walter Patricio Arizala Vernaza was born in Valdez, Ecuador in 1989, and he joined FARC in 2007, coming to be known by the nickname "Guacho". He led FARC's 29th Front, and, in 2017, he chose not to acknowledge the June 2016 ceasefire between FARC and the Colombian government. In April 2018, his group captured and killed two journalists and their driver, and the Colombian and Ecuadorian governments each offered $100,000 for information resultingg in Arizala's capture. On 21 December 2018, he was killed in a joint military and police operation in Tumaco, Colombia.