CARACAS: Venezuelan police and special forces soldiers killed the country’s most wanted criminal, gang leader Jose Antonio Tovar Colina, in a shootout on Tuesday.

The shootout went down in the central town of El Sombrero, in a neighbourhood where Tovar Colina and his gang led a reign of terror, Interior Minister Gustavo Gonzalez Lopez said.

Three other gang members were killed alongside Tovar Colina, who was wanted for multiple homicides, hired killings, robbery, kidnapping and drug trafficking.

“The pursuit continues of the other members of this paramilitary gang, which has done so much damage to the country,” said Gonzalez Lopez.

The success of the operation against Tovar Colina was a rare bit of good news for President Nicolas Maduro’s government, whose popularity has plunged in the face of a long-running economic crisis, food shortages, power blackouts and rampant crime.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2016