By: Alicia Florez, Insight Crime March 2023 Community leaders in Colombia’s Putumayo department have historically supported coca substitution programs as part of peace processes aimed at resolving the country’s long-running…
Category: COLOMBIA
Otoniel Pleads Guilty: Farewell to Colombia’s Last Kingpin
By: Insight Crime January 31, 2023 Otoniel, the fallen head of the Urabeños crime syndicate, has pleaded guilty to a raft of crimes in New York. His trial marks the…
Iván Mordisco’s Reappearance Brings New Challenges to ‘Total Peace’ in Colombia
By: Insight Crime October 25, 2022 For the last three months, Colombia believed that Iván Mordisco, one of the foremost leaders of the ex-FARC mafia, had been killed in a…
Venezuela, Colombia, and the ELN at the Crossroads of Peace
By: Insight Crime October 11, 2022 President Gustavo Petro has offered Colombia a tantalizing vision of “Total Peace:” a negotiated end to all the armed conflicts that have plagued the…
Venezuela and the ELN’s Love-Hate Relationship with Drug Trafficking
By: Insight Crime October 11, 2022 In the border area where northeast Colombia’s Catatumbo region meets the northwestern Venezuelan state of Zulia is one of the world’s most seamless cocaine…
Pablito’s Plan: Rise of the ELN in Venezuela
By: Insight Crime October 11, 2022 On the morning of October 7, 2009, prison guards in the west Colombian state of Arauca were tasked with a simple but terrifying task:…
Rebels and Paramilitaries: Colombia’s Guerrillas in Venezuela
By: Insight Crime October 11, 2022 For the last two years, Venezuelan states along the Colombian border have experienced firsthand the death and destruction of a war they had spent…
How Venezuela Became a Cemetery for the ex-FARC Mafia Leadership
By: Insight Crime October 11, 2022 On the night of May 4, 2022, an explosion cut through a guerrilla camp in the Venezuelan border state of Zulia. The bomb, placed…
Colombia’s President Petro Challenges US Anti-Drug Policy in UN Speech
September 27, 2022 The new president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, lambasted the US’ decades-long war on drugs in Latin America in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly, confirming…
ELN and Urabeños War Again in Northern Colombia
August 23, 2022 Armed confrontations between two of Colombia’s most prominent criminal groups have broken a three-year period of relative calm in the northern department of Bolívar, despite both groups…
Can the ELN and Colombia’s Government Chart a New Path Towards Peace?
BY JUAN DIEGO POSADA August 16, 2022 Colombia’s last remaining guerrilla group, the ELN, is ready to start peace talks with the new government. Should these get going, it might…
Cartels await Venezuelan migrants in Colombia says Crisis Report!
By: Staff Writer August 12, 2022 The International Crisis Group released a report detailing how 2.5m Venezuelan migrants living in Colombia after fleeing their home country on humanitarian grounds now…