Bogota Colombia. For decades, Colombia has been the world’s leading cocaine producer. Numerous Colombian criminal groups have entered the drug trade through alliances with mafias worldwide.
Colombian organized crime is deeply fragmented. The demobilization of paramilitary organizations in the early 2000s and the signing of a peace agreement with one of the country’s most important guerrilla groups in 2016 led to the emergence of different dissident and rearmed insurgents.
Most have put ideology aside to focus on drug production, trafficking and distribution, as well as other illicit economies, including illegal mining, migrant smuggling, arms trafficking, money laundering, contraband, and extortion.
Geography
Colombia’s location is strategic for several reasons. First, it has direct access to the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, which facilitates the shipment of cocaine via speedboats, semi-submersibles, and cargo ships to different countries.
Additionally, it shares borders with Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, and Panama. These borders are extremely porous, allowing the flow of drugs, contraband, arms, and migrants, among other illegal bounty.
Internally, the country’s rugged geography of three mountain ranges and thick jungles provides criminal organizations with enough cover to produce drugs in clandestine laboratories, store them, and transport them through routes that are difficult for the authorities to access.
The country’s gold resources have led to the proliferation of illegal mining, which represents a key source of income for criminal groups, sometimes even surpassing the profits generated by drug trafficking.
History
The country’s relationship with drug trafficking began in the 1970s, when farmers in northern Colombia began planting marijuana as a much more lucrative alternative to legal crops. This period was known as the “Bonanza Marimbera”.
Marijuana was shipped to the United States through networks involving Colombians and Americans, some of whom had come to Colombia in the 1960s with the Peace Corps. The smuggling of marijuana from Colombia to the United States laid the groundwork for the trafficking of other drugs such as cocaine.
Colombian drug traffickers became the main links for cocaine shipments from Peru and Bolivia to the north of the continent. The late 1970s saw the emergence of the first major cocaine cartels: the Medellín Cartel -led by Pablo Escobar- and the Cali Cartel, headed by the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers.
Alongside the drug cartels, since the 1960s there have been various guerrilla groups, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC), the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación – EPL) and the April 19 Movement (Movimiento 19 de Abril – M-19).
One of the main methods of financing these groups was kidnapping businessmen, cattle ranchers, and politicians for ransom.
In response, self-defense movements emerged in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia to confront the guerrillas and support the army in counterinsurgency efforts. In 1981, the kidnapping of Marta Nieves Ochoa —daughter and sister of well-known members of the Medellín Cartel— by the M-19 led to the creation of one of the first paramilitary groups financed by drug traffickers.
Cocaine laboratories were lucrative for criminal and guerrilla groups, as well as for businessmen and government officials, who profited directly or indirectly from the drug trade.
Few had any real incentive to reduce drug trafficking until the U.S. government exerted pressure through prosecutions against major cartel leaders.
In 1982, Pablo Escobar became a member of the Colombian Congress, after being elected as an alternate representative to the House of Representatives for the department of Antioquia.
However, some journalists and politicians, such as then Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, denounced Escobar’s links to drug trafficking, which led to Escobar’s expulsion from Congress in 1983 and the assassination of Lara Bonilla on Escobar’s orders in April 1984.
This assassination, one of the first political murders at the hands of drug traffickers in Colombia, led to the approval of the extradition of drug traffickers to the United States.
The first extradited drug traffickers left for the United States in 1985, unleashing a wave of violence in which dozens of police, politicians, and judges were assassinated on the orders of “Los Extraditables”, a group of drug traffickers from the country’s main cartels who opposed extradition.
The assassinations worked, and the Colombian government eliminated extradition treaties during the 1991 National Constituent Assembly. That year, the M-19 and EPL disarmed.
With extradition abolished, Escobar surrendered to justice, but only on the condition that he serve his time inside his own luxury prison, La Catedral, built on a hillside in the municipality of Envigado, near Medellín.
In July 1992, Escobar ordered the assassination of Gerardo Moncada and Fernando Galeano —two of his associates in the Medellín Cartel— inside La Catedral. This prompted the government to carry out a military operation to take control of the prison and move Escobar elsewhere. However, Escobar fled.
Following his escape, Escobar’s former associates in the Medellín Cartel, including brothers Fidel, Vicente, and Carlos Castaño Gil, fearful of being assassinated by the drug lord, created the PEPES — Persecuted by Pablo Escobar (Perseguidos por Pablo Escobar).
The PEPES was a paramilitary-like group that included a tacit alliance between the Colombian police, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and members of the Cali Cartel. Escobar was killed in December 1993.
After Escobar’s death, drug trafficking continued its rise. Those who had allied to destroy him took over his production chain and distribution networks. Some of his former enemies, such as the Cali Cartel, negotiated their surrender to justice, while new, more sophisticated criminal groups emerged. Among them, the Norte del Valle Cartel.
The end of the Cali and Medellín cartels meant the end of the direct purchase of coca paste in Peru and Bolivia, and led to an increase in coca leaf production in Colombia. Much of the cultivation was centered in rural and border areas, dominated by guerrilla groups.
Taxing drug trafficking became an important source of financing for the guerrillas, giving their enemies incentives to take over their territories. Soon, some FARC fronts also became more involved in cocaine production and trafficking, especially through Venezuela and Brazil, and later through Ecuador.
In 1994, the Peasant Self-Defense Forces of Córdoba and Urabá (Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá) emerged, led by the Castaño Gil brothers.
This group was the predecessor of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC), a national movement of paramilitary groups formed in 1997 to confront the guerrillas.
The AUC relied on drug trafficking as a significant financial engine. In their criminal splendor, they reached 35,000 members at arms.
In 2003, the Norte del Valle Cartel began a bloody internal war. The war coincided with the beginning of a peace process in which AUC leaders demobilized their armies and surrendered to the authorities in 2006.
Several paramilitary commanders were killed during this process, and many of those who later surrendered were extradited to the United States.
The disintegration of the Norte del Valle Cartel and the demobilization of the AUC marked the beginning of a new era in Colombian crime, dominated by criminal hybrids and paramilitary successor groups that the government dubbed BACRIM (Bandas Criminales).
In the wake of this criminal fragmentation, more than 30 criminal gangs emerged. Soon after, their numbers were reduced as many were absorbed into larger criminal networks or dismantled by the security forces.
One of the criminal gangs that emerged at the time was the Urabeños or the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), a group formed by mid and high-ranking members of the AUC who demobilized, but took up arms again soon after.
Like them, other groups in different parts of the country, such as the Pachenca, sought control of the territories left by the AUC.
For its part, the FARC initiated dialogues with the Colombian government in 2012 that led to the signing of a peace agreement in 2016 and the demobilization of more than 13,000 fighters.
The FARC’s departure from territories under its control generated a new criminal recomposition, including dissident FARC groups and structures that rearmed after the signing of the accords.
Today, the dissident structures are grouped under two rival factions: the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC) and the Second Marquetalia. These groups have also been called ex-FARC mafia.
In 2022, Gustavo Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrilla group, took office as president, becoming Colombia’s first leftist president.
One of his main banners was “Total Peace” (Paz Total), through which he sought to establish parallel dialogues with different armed groups, criminals and criminal gangs in the country.
The process has advanced, despite significant obstacles. One of them has been the lack of a legal framework to establish dialogues with illegal groups that are not political in nature, such as the AGC or the criminal gangs in cities such as Medellín and Buenaventura.
Negotiations with the ELN and the EMC have also faced important ruptures due to kidnappings and armed attacks committed by the groups against the civilian population. In June 2024, negotiations with the Second Marquetalia began.
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Criminal Groups
After the FARC’s demobilization and exit from the Colombian criminal landscape in the mid-2010’s, power vacuums in the territory it had occupied led to a reconfiguration of the power balance.
Among the criminal groups that took advantage of this change, the ELN and the Gaitanistas have gained considerable territorial and criminal power.
FARC dissident groups have also made a name for themselves, especially the EMC, and in smaller measure, the Second Marquetalia, whose power is concentrated on the border with Venezuela.
Other groups also maintain an important territorial presence, and participate directly in criminal economies like drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion.
Among these, some paramilitary successor groups stand out, like the Pachenca, the Caparros, and the Puntilleros. Smaller local criminal networks also persist.
From gangs in urban areas like Medellín and Buenaventura, to groups like La Oficina, the one-time armed wing of the Medellín Cartel.
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Security Forces
The Colombian security forces —divided into the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Police— have around 500,000 active members. Each branch works hand in hand with security agencies in other countries, sharing information, and, sometimes, coordinating operations against organized crime groups.
Colombian security forces have been involved in corruption cases and have been linked to criminal groups in the past.
The security and defense sector was the most affected by corruption between 2016 and 2022, according to data from Transparencia por Colombia.
Similarly, State security forces have been involved in cases of excessive use of force, violence against civilians, and violations of human rights.
Judicial System
The Colombian court system is headed by four judicial institutions: the Supreme Court, which oversees civil and criminal law; the Council of State (Consejo de Estado), which deals with administrative law; the Constitutional Court, and the Superior Council of the Judiciary (Consejo Superior de la Judicatura), which works as an appellate court for jurisdiction conflicts among courts.
However, the system has been bogged down by inefficiency and high rates of impunity for years.
Colombia also has transitional justice courts that oversee affairs related to the internal conflict. The Justice and Peace (Justicia y Paz) tribunals were created after the paramilitary demobilization.
The 2016 peace agreement with the FARC created the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz – JEP), a transitional justice court to oversee cases stemming from events during the armed conflict before December 1, 2016.
Prisons
Colombia’s prisons are overcrowded, crumbling, plagued by corruption and criminal economies. Currently, prisons nationwide are 25.3% overcrowded, a situation aggravated by the fact that more than 20% of inmates have not yet been sentenced. This has resulted in a lack of judicial guarantees and access to basic services.
Colombia’s prison system is run by an independent body, the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (Instituto Nacional Penitenciario y Carcelario, INPEC), which has been involved in multiple corruption scandals.
One of the most notorious cases occurred in March 2022, when Juan Larinson Castro Estupiñan, alias “Matamba,” a powerful drug trafficker associated with the Gaitanistas, escaped from a maximum security prison in Bogotá, allegedly with the help of prison officials. Several other INPEC officials have been captured in separate corruption-related cases.
Inside Colombian prisons, illegal economies — mainly extortion — thrive. Networks of inmates extort money from people outside via cell phones smuggled into the prisons.
While prisons are not under the direct control of criminal groups, as is the case in other countries, this does not mean that the structures within prisons are weak. In May 2024, the director of one of Bogotá’s main prisons was murdered after receiving death threats from inside the prison.
