From Insurgency to Illicit Trade: Analyzing FARC Dissidents in the Cocaine Market

From Insurgency to Illicit Trade: Analyzing FARC Dissidents in the Cocaine Market

Camilo Pardo-Herrera and Mahmut Cengiz       

Brazilian Federal Police eradicating illicit crops in Maranhão in the Amazon region where FARC-D and Brazilian Gang Operations  Converge (Photo: Brazilian Federal Police, November 2023)

Colombia holds a crucial role in the global drug trade, serving as a major source of cocaine linked to its historical conflicts and ongoing violence. The nation has been marred by some of history's most notorious drug trafficking organizations, including the Medellín and Cali cartels, which have significantly affected Colombia's stability and safety. Additionally, Colombia has been home to several violent revolutionary groups. For decades, organizations like FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – National Liberation Army) engaged in armed conflict, exacerbating the country’s violence.

The signing of the peace agreement between the National Government and the FARC in 2016, along with their subsequent demobilization, caused a significant shift in the country’s armed conflict. With the largest and most powerful armed group gone—whose main source of income was the illegal cocaine trade—the dynamics of the armed struggle changed dramatically. This led to increased competition among various groups for local dominance. Colombia now faces ongoing challenges from these remaining factions, in particular from those that are now known as FARC Dissidents (FARC-D)—splinter groups that rejected the terms of the peace agreement and/or its implementation and continue to be up in arms and heavily involved in the cocaine trade. This article examines the key players in this illicit market and analyzes the role of FARC-D groups.

In 2022, four percent of the global population used cocaine; the United States and Europe primarily drive this demand. Notably, Brazil in South America recently emerged as a growing consumption market, and it is estimated that Colombian organizations supplied around 70 percent of global demand, reinforcing Colombia's pivotal role in the international drug trade.[3] In 2022, it was reported that authorities in the country confiscated an impressive 87.3 tons of cocaine base paste and 484 tons of marijuana.[4] After more than 50 years of the war on drugs, illegal trafficking continues to be a critical challenge for the global community. Recent incidents highlight the ongoing struggle against cocaine trade. Notably, on February 8, 2024, British authorities announced a landmark seizure of over 12,500 pounds of cocaine concealed within a banana shipment originating from Colombia and headed for Southampton. Enough for over 11 million personal doses.[5]

Since the 1960s, Colombia has been undergoing a convoluted internal armed conflict in which a fluctuating number of groups (criminal and insurgents) have fought amongst themselves and against the government. Since the 1990’s, after the global cocaine boom, all of these groups got involved in cocaine trafficking. Once the largest and most powerful armed group in the country, FARC’s demobilization gave way to a fragmented competition for local dominance among a myriad of groups. Currently, these remaining organizations can be classified in four large categories of groups: i) the insurgent National Liberation Army (ELN) ii), Post-paramilitary groups which had splintered form paramilitary armies that had surrendered their weapons in the early 2000s (e.g., The Gulf Clan), iii) those splintering from FARC (a.k.a. FARC dissidents), and iv) a multitude of other smaller groups involved in transnational organized crime.[6]

The common denominator between these groups is their involvement in illicit economies, mainly to pursue financial profits. Territorial control is therefore vital in their operation model, as revenue depends primarily on the type and extent of illegal activities they can engage in, as well as on the number of extortions they can levy on legal and illicit actors. This new dynamic explains the fact that in recent years, clashes between these groups and the Colombian Armed Forces are rare (when compared to historical numbers), and their tactics have mainly refocused on pointed attacks on troops and police. This also explains the vital surge in the cowing of local communities, extortions, and illegal mining and recruiting.

Along with their purpose of amassing illegal profits and the concurrent ideological decline, these groups also share other attributes. Given their criminal nature and need to control territory, their first and most powerful control lever is financial. Consequently, current groups are characterized by the fast circulation of members. In contrast with past group cohesion based on some common idea of social change, current groups try to win over the population by becoming a stable source of employment and usually pay a salary to maintain their troops. This explains their slow but constant growth in size and scope.

This persistent growth has also been favored by a decentralized operating model, in which, although a hierarchical structure is still identifiable, the line of command is diffuse. This allows field commanders enough discretionary power to make decisions on everyday issues, ranging from what type of illicit economy to participate in, to carrying out a particular assassination, to their involvement in conflict resolution within local communities. Below is a brief description of the intricacies of each category or armed group.

Insurgents

The National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) is a longstanding insurgency group heavily involved in the cocaine trade. Founded in 1965 by students, Catholic radicals, and leftist intellectuals, the ELN occasionally worked with FARC, but they have also been adversaries in armed conflict. Initially, the ELN avoided drug trafficking due to ideological beliefs, relying instead on kidnappings for ransom and various extortion tactics to fund their operations.

Today, although it maintains a specific ideological configuration, the ELN is mainly focused on controlling territories for drug trafficking rather than on replacing the Colombian Government. Their methods include armed assaults, assassinations, extortion, and kidnappings, with targets ranging from government officials and military forces to critical infrastructure and civilians. The US designated the ELN as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Among their most notorious attacks are the 1998 bombing of a pipeline that killed 72 people, an assault on a police academy in 2018 that left five officers dead, and a 2019 attack that killed 22 cadets. Initially, the ELN shunned direct involvement in drug trafficking; however, as the landscape of armed conflict evolved after the fall of the former Soviet Union and guerrilla groups weakened financially, many of its factions began engaging in coca cultivation. The group now profits by taxing drug traffickers, and some members are directly involved in cocaine the cocaine trade along the border between Norte de Santander in Colombia and Zulia in Venezuela.[7]

Post-paramilitary Groups

The second group comprises post-paramilitary factions that broke away from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC), a coalition of far-right paramilitary groups that demobilized in the 2000s. Their leaders stated that their mission was to counter the rise of leftist guerrillas in Colombia. However, under the guise of counterinsurgency efforts, they were involved in extensive criminal enterprises and committed numerous war crimes, such as massacres, forced displacement, disappearances, land seizures, kidnapping, and extortion. Paramilitary armies emerged from drug trafficking organizations as a means to protect their coca crops and cocaine trade activities, as well as secure their businesses from insurgent extortion.[8] Later on, other trafficking organizations in other areas of the country began to integrate into the paramilitary network by acquiring AUC blocs in strategically vital locations along the drug trafficking networks. This fusion of drug trafficking with the AUC's mission blurred the lines of their alleged counterinsurgency objectives, resulting in intensified power struggles and rivalries among the organization's key leaders as they vied for control and influence over these lucrative operations.

Following the AUC's demobilization in 2006, more than 30 new criminal factions, collectively known as “BACRIM” (short for “bandas criminales”), emerged. In the following years, these groups waged a relentless and violent conflict for supremacy, engaging in a brutal war for control over territories and illicit markets.[9] At one point, BACRIM had an impressive territorial presence, and operated in 31 of Colombia's 32 departments. Estimates of their membership vary significantly. In their early years, the National Police reported approximately 3,870 members, while the Institute of Studies for Development and Peace (INDEPAZ) suggested the number was closer to 7,000. Human Rights Watch provided an even higher estimate, claiming that BACRIM could consist of up to 10,000 members.[10]

However, in the years since their emergence, most of their original structures have evolved into small drug trafficking gangs, with ties to other illicit economies like extortion, unauthorized mining, smuggling, illegal gambling, prostitution, illegal logging, arms trafficking, and fuel smuggling, solidifying their role as a formidable force in Colombia's criminal landscape.[11]

In contrast to their former partner BACRIM organizations, Los Urabeños (a.k.a. the Gulf Clan), has not stopped growing in scope, power and territorial control since its emergence and is one of today’s dominant criminal organizations in the country. Currently, the Gulf Clan is primarily involved in transnational drug trafficking, but also dominates enough territory to exercise control over many other illegal enterprises like illegal mining or the smuggling of migrants through the Darién Gap, in limits with Panamá.[12]

FARC-Dissidents

FARC-D groups began to emerge in 2016 during the peace negotiations with the government. Today, they are loosely organized under two competing umbrellas: one, led by the former leader of the First Front or Primer Frente (a.k.a. Iván Mordisco, after its leader Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, alias “Iván Mordisco”) and known as the Central General Staff (Estado Mayor Central – EMC), with about 25 smaller structures and 3,500 members. The second umbrella group calls itself the Segunda Marquetalia, and it was founded in 2019 by Iván Marquez, FARC’s former lead peace negotiator, after they had already demobilized. The Segunda Marquetalia comprises about 15 smaller structures and nearly 1,500 men.[13]

The factions that make up the dissidents are primarily composed of former FARC members who occupy areas previously controlled by the guerrilla group. These smaller structures are involved in and produce revenue from coca cultivation, drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion. Although a great variety of these small-sized groups have emerged since 2016, currently all factions have some connection with the two main dissident groups: the Central General Staff and the Segunda Marquetalia.

The first of these groups to emerge, the Central General Staff, formed in 2016 as negotiations with the government were nearing completion. In June of that year, a small group of guerrilla commanders from FARC’s First Front announced their resignation from the peace process. Their leader, Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, known as “Iván Mordisco,” commanded at least 400 members and controlled drug trafficking routes in the Colombian departments of Guaviare, Guainía, and Vaupés. A few months later, Miguel Botache Santillana, known as “Gentil Duarte,” a guerrilla with over 30 years of experience and commander of the Seventh Front, also left the process to join Mordisco and his men. This decision contradicted FARC’s leadership, which labeled them insubordinate and was justified by an alleged breach of the agreement’s terms.

On its part, the Segunda Marquetalia came about after the peace deal had been signed in 2016, and the demobilization process had successfully ended in 2017. In August 2019, Ivan Márquez, FARC’s lead negotiator, announced the return of a group of former top brass to arms and the creation of the group, alleging the betrayal of the Colombian Government to the Peace Accord. Although his words were not initially fully understood, the abusive use of the country’s criminal system by the Attorney General’s Office against a.k.a. “Jesús Santrich” and the involvement of the Drug Enforcement Agency was later confirmed by the United Nations[14] and the Colombian media.[15]

While they broadly share the essence and features of other criminal groups currently involved in transnational crime, FARC-D groups have key differences both with those different groups and between them. While both structures have continuously grown since their inception, the Segunda Marquetalia did so only for a couple of years, and just until it consolidated three regional structures:  The Pacific Region Guerrilla Coordination (Coordinadora Guerrillera del Pacífico), the Frontier Command (Comandos de Frontera) and the Segunda Marquetalia. The EMC continues to grow, currently accounting for 26 of these regional units and about 3,500 men.[16]

Despite their growth, or perhaps as a consequence, both structures struggle to achieve internal cohesiveness and a clear line of command. In this regard, the EMC clearly intends to achieve a hierarchical structure through which a central command defines general strategies for local units to obey. Although there seems to be some progress in achieving this aim, media coverage still indicates that this central influence still does not exist. On its part, the Segunda Marquetalia appears to be aiming for a different type of organization, in which the three structures function more as a coalition/federation and cooperate while maintaining their initiative and leadership.[17]

Third, the methods by which each group has sought to establish governance in their operating regions vary significantly. While the EMC created its organization with local units, which had already been established and enjoying good influence in the area, the SM tried to wage its war “from above.” As it may seem obvious, time has proven local ties to be more effective in establishing solid social roots than imposing them from outside.[18]

This has directly impacted the type and degree of criminal governance that each group can exercise in their areas of influence. While both organizations have carried out standard elements of governance (e.g., an offer of protection, the maintenance of an economy, the resolution of disputes, and the imposition of rules for the civilian population), levels of authority vary depending on time, location, the unit involved and the social cohesion of the hosting community.

Finally, although involved in drug trafficking and other illicit economies, in contrast with other groups like the Gulf Clan or the countless other groups also involved in the cocaine trade, the EMC and Segunda Marquetalia maintain some ideological goal, whose pursue they finance through their involvement in illicit economies. For example, their ideological imprint can be evidenced in the training program that SM leaders hold with their units to strengthen them politically. On its part, the EMC maintains FARC’s original statutes (an ideological text) as its guiding principles. However, it is also frequent that within each group, some smaller structures portray a more self-promoting purpose, contravening the ideological purpose that the leaders would like to stamp on the group.

FARC Dissidents and Terrorism

FARC's transformation from a revolutionary group to a cocaine trafficking organization has significantly blurred the lines of what constitutes terrorism in Latin America. Initially, FARC was primarily recognized for its Marxist ideology and revolutionary goals, which framed its violent actions within a context of political struggle. However, as the group became increasingly involved in the cocaine trade, perceptions shifted. FARC's engagement in drug trafficking tainted its international image, leading some to view it not just as a terrorist organization, but as a criminal enterprise that pursued profit alongside its ideological objectives.

The emergence of dissident groups after the 2016 peace agreement further complicates this landscape. These new factions, which broke away from the main body of FARC, continue to engage in both armed conflict and drug trafficking. The US Department of State has classified Segunda Marquetalia as a terrorist organization. While the violent actions of FARC-D groups are documented in terrorism databases, their primary focus remains on the cocaine trade in the region.

FARC-D groups maintain a presence in terrorism databases, reflecting their ongoing violent activities, even as their motives may blend revolutionary rhetoric with criminal enterprise. For instance, the Global Terrorism Trends and Analysis Center (GTTAC) recorded 18 FARC-D groups, including the Central General Staff, Segunda Marquetalia, Dagoberto Ramos Mobile Column, Carlos Patiño Front, Front 33, Front 36, Front 6, and Front 10. Among these, the Dagoberto Ramos Mobile Column was the most active, carrying out 38 attacks from 2018 to 2022, followed by Front 33 and Front 6.[19] GTTAC reported 372 terrorist attacks attributed to various FARC-D groups between 2018 and 2022.[20]The National Liberation Army (ELN), another prominent insurgent group in Colombia, conducted  452 attacks in the same period. This data illustrates that despite the shift in focus towards drug trafficking, these groups remain highly active and are responsible for a significant portion of the violence in Colombia.[21]

FARC Dissidents and Drug Trafficking

Most of the dissidents' structures are linked to cocaine trafficking operations, whether to fund selfish aims or to finance a political struggle. Although they ultimately lost the market prevalence they once enjoyed as FACR-EP, these splinter groups maintain links with and derive income from illegal economies in their areas of influence. They also retain control over trafficking routes and international contacts, which feed the demand of global illicit markets. 

Estado Mayor Central

The Central General Staff (EMC) has an essential influence over cocaine production and commercialization in the Colombian departments of Amazonas, Caquetá, Guainía, Guaviare, Meta, and Vaupés. This allows the group to participate in export activities through the borders with Venezuela, Brazil, Perú and Ecuador. Influence over these regions also provides access to ports along the Colombian Southern Pacific Coast and, hence, access to Central and North American docks. The Premier Frente (First Front), EMC’s first structure, also levies taxes on all other actors who buy coca paste or cocaine in areas they control. 

The EMC contacts criminal organizations in the region to expand their reach. In Colombia’s Nort Eastern border, along the Venezuelan departments of Táchira and Zulia, they maintain links with Mexican cartels who ship cocaine from Venezuelan ports.[22] Of special attention is the relationship that the EMC has established with the Sinaloa Cartel, as it ships large quantities of drugs from Colombia’s Eastern Plains into Southern Venezuela and Northern Brazil and then onto the world’s consumption hubs in North America and Europe.[23]] 

One of EMC’s structures controls El Naya, a region on the country’s Southwestern Coast and Colombia's third-largest coca cultivation center. Groups shipping cocaine from this area have attracted the attention of the authorities because of their use of submarines to ship cocaine to Central and North America. These devices can carry as much as three tons of cocaine at once (3,000 kgs) and pose significant detection challenges to authorities.[24]

EMC’s influence in the region has grown so significant that one of its more minor factions, the Jaime Martinez Front, is reported to have built an illegal road connecting El Naya, a coca production center, with Puerto Merizalde, a major cocaine shipping port on the Pacific coast of Colombia. This road is referred to as a "trans-criminal highway" because it facilitates the shipment of Colombian cocaine northward and the arrival of American weapons southward, contributing to high levels of violence in the region.

EMC has also expanded its presence beyond Colombia’s borders and has joined the reconfiguration of organized crime that is taking place in Ecuador.[25] The epicenter of this rearrangement is the northern town of Esmeraldas, in the Ecuadorian northern Pacific, where violence rates surge as Mexican cartels, FARC-D groups, and local gangs try to control the flourishing illegal economies. There, EMC structures have joined forces with the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) and local groups: Los Lobos, Los Tiguerones, and Los Chone Killers. Together, they wage a turf war against the Oliver Sinisterra Front from the Segunda Marquetalia, which is aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel and Ecuadorian gangs: Los Choneros, Los Águilas, and Los Gánsters.

Segunda Marquetalia (SM)

Although on a smaller scale, Segunda Marquetalia also plays an essential role in drug trafficking through Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador. Initially, Ivan Marquez, FARC’s lead negotiator, used his contacts in Venezuela to open up space for his group in the illicit economy world in the neighboring country. For example, Venezuelan intelligence has identified the location of over 30 illegal landing strips used for the illegal export of gold and cocaine from Venezuelan soil. Intelligence reports also show how this infrastructure is shared by Segunda Marquetalia, members of EMC, and the National Liberation Army (ELN).[26]

Segunda Marquetalia has also expanded towards the Southwest regions of Colombia and beyond its borders with Ecuador. There, the Oliver Sinisterra Front established a partnership with the Sinaloa Cartel that reached trade activity for over US$25 million weekly in cocaine.

The Comandos de la Frontera (Border Command), one of SM’s main structures, has also penetrated into Ecuador and established alliances with Ecuadorian organized crime in the department of Esmeraldas. Interestingly, this structure has established links with Los Lobos, which has also worked with the EMC in other areas, what points to the opportunistic nature of these alliances.[27]

Given its influence in Colombia’s Eastern Plains and Amazon regions, Segunda Marquetalia has also expanded its influence into neighboring Brazil. There, they maintain relationships with two of the most influential drug cartels in the region—the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC or First Capital Command) and the Red Command (Comando Vermelho or CV)—some of which have been ongoing for more than 20 years.[28] Currently, SM’s commercial ties are stronger with the PPC and include cocaine, marihuana, and weapons.[29]

However, structures from the EMC have also been identified as important partners of the PCC and CV on Brazilian soil. The Carolina Ramírez Front of the EMC uses the infinite fluvial network to ship illegal drugs and weapons through the Amazon to the PCC, CV or the Familia do Norte (Northern Family or FDN), and then into the hands of consumers in Europe and Asia through the ports of Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.[30]

The fact that Brazilian cartels do business with both factions of the FARC-D groups is also indicative of the opportunistic nature that these alliances have. As one analyst was quoted saying to Colombian media: “coordination between Colombian and Brazilian groups is merely based on who can get the drugs safely, paying the sender a percentage depending on the volume, on-street cost abroad, and to whom and where it goes.”[31]

Government Response to FARC-D Groups and the Future of Cocaine Trade

The Total Peace (Paz total) policy is one of the most important and ambitious initiatives of Colombia’s government. This strategy seeks a negotiated path with illegal armed groups in the country, including FARC dissidents, the ELN, post-paramilitary groups, and other criminal groups, to significantly reduce violence in their areas of influence. The pacification of these regions is expected to open the possibility for the government to transform these territories through social and economic development.

On the ground, the execution of this ambitious strategy has led the Government to have up to nine simultaneous dialogue tables with groups of totally different essences and origins. These dialogues with criminal groups aim to agree on the legal terms for these groups to submit themselves to justice. With insurgents, negotiations take the form of traditional peace talks, aiming to agree on social transformations in exchange for the group surrendering their weapons. 

As a result of the implementation of the Total Peace policy, several bilateral and temporary ceasefires have been signed. In some cases, these ceasefires have even been extended in time. In other cases, the dialogue spaces have been practical in reducing the harm of violence against civilians and have been the setting for agreeing on humanitarian corridors to allow the flow of food or medicine in the middle of the hostilities between groups.

After two years of implementation, violence reduction results are positive. Homicides, land mine accidents, personal threats, forced displacement, assassinations of civil society leaders, and underage recruitment have drastically gone down.[32] Kidnappings went up during the first year but have since decreased significantly and mainly take place in urban areas, which leads to suggest that could be explained by organized crime and not by the actions of the groups involved in the peace negotiations.[33]

Although not a policy directly aimed at addressing drug trafficking, given the involvement of these organizations in the illegal trade, if successful, the Total Peace initiative will necessarily affect the dynamics of the global cocaine business. However, if prohibition persists and global demand remains, the lucrative nature of the industry will incentivize other groups to take the place of those deciding to retire from the industry. This will keep drug production and violence rates intact. The world has seen defeated or retiring organizations been replaced by new ones since the Medellín and Cali Cartels in the early 1990s.

The government is aware of this. Nevertheless, the Total Peace policy could produce a shift in the geography of the international cocaine supply chain. It will not curtail drug trafficking as a global industry, but it can withdraw from or at least reduce the influence of Colombian organizations in the international market, which in turn will produce significant effects on the country's security.

Although this global shift is already taking place, agreeing with Colombian organizations involved in drug trafficking to resign their operations will necessarily redefine the global market. Two primary shifts are already underway. For one, since 2017, organized criminal groups (not smallholders) have been establishing coca plantations in Central America for cocaine production. This has broken South America's long monopoly on coca leaf production for the global cocaine trade.[34] Coca crops have been increasing in numbers in Belize since 2020 when the first plantation was identified.[35] In Mexico, coffee crops are being replaced by coca bushes.[36] The same trends have been identified in Guatemala,[37] Honduras,[38] El Salvador[39], and Venezuela.[40]

Second, Europe has recently shifted from its traditional consumption role to a cocaine production hub. Increasingly larger clandestine laboratories have been dismantled in Spain[[41]]and the Netherlands.[[42]] To allow criminal organizations to reduce their losses in the event of possible police seizures, the unprocessed raw materials are exported to be chemically processed directly in Europe.

These global shifts reaffirm what is known in technical circles as the “balloon effect.” This concept suggests that when control or surveillance efforts are implemented at one point in the cocaine supply chain, the tracked activities are not eliminated but instead shift to another location. If successful, the Total Peace Policy could result in the largest disaggregation of actors and relocation of activities seen in the war on drugs since its inception.

Endnotes