Colombia Archives – ITSS Verona

December 11, 2025 — No Comments

The U.S. pressure and the Venezuela–Colombia Connection

By Giovanni Giacalone - Central and South America Desk

On October 24, 2025, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the President of Colombia Gustavo Petro, his wife, his son, and Petro’s close associate, Armando Benedetti, over accusations of involvement in the global drug trade.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a statement. “Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity…President Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.”

Following the sanctions announcement, Petro named an attorney and stated that he will battle the measure taken by Washington. The Colombian President also praised his approach to countering narcotics: “Combating drug trafficking effectively for decades brings me this measure from the government of the society we helped so much to stop its use of cocaine…Quite a paradox, but not one step back and never on our knees.”

In September, the United States added Colombia to a list of countries failing to cooperate in the war on drugs, for the first time since the Pablo Escobar era.

Gustavo Petro, a former far-left guerrilla leader, claims that his counter-narcotics policy is utilizing a non-repressive approach that prioritises reaching agreements with coca leaf farmers in order to convince them to cultivate other types of crops while, at the same time, using law enforcement to hunt down drug dealers.

However, according to UN data from the Office on Drugs and Crime, the amount of land dedicated to coca cultivation has almost tripled in the past decade to a record 253,000 hectares (625,000 acres) in 2023. Colombia provides around 90% of the cocaine that is sold every year in the U.S.

The Cartel de los Soles

While the Colombian President is accused of failing to cooperate in the drug war, with Colombia being the primary cocaine provider, Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his close associates are accused by the U.S. of leading the drug distribution network through the Cartel de los Soles, transporting the merchandise to Mexico, the final distributor.

In July 2025, the US Treasury Department sanctioned Maduro (indicated as the leader of the Cartel), Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello Rondon. Other senior regime figures had already been blacklisted in 2020. President Trump has also placed a bounty on Maduro’s head, offering $US50 million for information leading to his arrest.

A drug trafficking organisation formed by high-ranking members of the Venezuelan state and armed forces, the Cartel de los Soles emerged in 1993, when two National Guard generals were investigated for drug trafficking. As brigade commanders, they wore a sun as their insignia, hence the name "Cartel de los Soles." Initially, the group was called "Grupo Fenix," and consisted primarily of majors, colonels, and lower-ranking military personnel. Over time, however, senior officers began to enter the fray, taking control of the trafficking ring and eliminating the lower ranks. The Cartel de los Soles was designated by the Trump administration as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation” in November 2025.

The weak Petro-Maduro political alliance

In August 2025, after the sanctions imposed by Washington on Maduro and his associates, Colombian President Gustavo Petro expressed his support for the Venezuelan leader, claiming that “Colombia and Venezuela are the same people, the same flag, the same history” and that “any military operation that is not approved by our sister countries is an aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean.” Petro also referred to Simon Bolivar’s call “freedom or death,” further revealing his attempt to bring Colombia closer to Venezuela.

Since being elected president of Colombia in August 2022, Gustavo Petro has gradually sought to distance the country from Western alliances and position himself alongside Maduro and the Bolivarian Alliance. This shift is unsurprising given his past as a member of the M-19, a far-left armed group founded in the 1970s and inspired by the Uruguayan Tupamaros and the Argentine Montoneros. At its height in the mid-1980s, the M-19 was the second largest armed group in Colombia, after the FARC, with the number of active members estimated at between 1,500 and 2,000. The M-19 demobilised in the late 1980s and transitioned to electoral politics.

Former Colombian Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon recently urged the U.S Presidency not to cut off all counter-narcotics aid to Colombia and hike tariffs, because this would affect the Colombian population as well as the military and law enforcement still operating on the frontline against narco-terrorism.

Pinzon instead suggested implementing sanctions against specific individuals who work in support of drug trafficking. This was done a few days later with the sanctions against Petro.

Pinzon was correct in that the situations in Colombia and Venezuela are extremely different and cannot be addressed with the same approach.

Venezuela has been a Bolivarian stronghold for decades, first under Chávez and then under Maduro. U.S. authorities contend that Venezuela has taken on a larger role in regional drug trafficking and has strengthened its ties with Iran, developments that have contributing to instability in the region. Under Maduro, Hezbollah's presence has proliferated in the country, becoming the main launching pad for drug trafficking to the United States.

Colombia, for its part, has always been a staunch ally of Washington, both in the fight against drug trafficking and against terrorism. The Colombian armed forces are trained by the United States and have been working together since the war against the Medellín and Cali cartels in the 1990s.

In 2022, Gustavo Petro was elected president, but despite his efforts, he was unable to separate the country's institutions from Washington. It's no coincidence that during the recent attempted attack by far-left protesters on the US Embassy in Bogotá, Petro had no choice but to deploy riot police to repel the attack, drawing criticism from his own supporters.

Critics argue that Petro’s government could face increasing internal challenges, and sanctions will certainly help. As for Maduro, however, some debate whether increased U.S. engagement may be required in the future, assuming Trump doesn't change his mind at the last minute.

Rising Tensions in the Region

The United States has deployed a massive military force of approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers, most of them at bases in Puerto Rico, but also a contingent of Marines on amphibious assault ships, as well as F-35 fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, eight warships, and a submarine.

US navy ships and aircrafts have been sighted just a few hundreds of miles off the coast of Venezuela, while the US has been conducting raids against more narco-speed boats leaving the coasts of Colombia and Venezuela.

Moreover, the US Navy announced the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, America’s largest warship, had arrived in the US Southern Command area of operations after US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Ford to head to the Caribbean from Europe in late October.

On the other side, this past week, Venezuela has announced a large-scale mobilisation of troops, weapons, and equipment in response to what it calls a growing U.S. military presence in the Caribbean Sea. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said land, air, naval, and reserve forces will conduct exercises through Wednesday, describing the operation as a response to what he termed the “imperialist threat” posed by the United States. The maneuvers will also include participation from the Bolivarian militia, a civilian reserve force aligned with the Maduro regime.

Whether all this mobilisation by the US serves merely to pressure the leader to resign peacefully or is instead instrumental in a regime change operation is another matter.

A full-scale U.S. invasion akin to the 1989 operation in Panama is highly improbable given Venezuela’s circumstances. The country’s vast size and complex geography, characterised by mountainous regions and dense jungle, provide ideal conditions for prolonged guerrilla warfare. Moreover, Venezuela’s armed forces are significantly more organised and capable than Panama’s were at the time. In addition, the Trump administration has shown little inclination to initiate new military conflicts.

A more plausible scenario for U.S. involvement might involve indirect support for a domestic uprising against the current regime, potentially through covert operations led by the Central Intelligence Agency, which may or may not already be active within Venezuelan territory.

May 22, 2025 — No Comments

Italian Researcher’s Murder and the Scopolamine Question

By Giovanni Giacalone - Central and Latin America Desk

On April 5, 2025, the Italian biologist Alessandro Coatti disappeared from the center of the Colombian city of Santa Marta, where he had arrived the previous day. He was last seen on the evening of April 5, after leaving the hotel in a taxi.

A hostel worker said that Coatti had "repeatedly asked for information on the routes to reach Minca," a location in the Sierra Nevada massif, "and if there was the possibility of studying the species in the area."

Santa Marta Metropolitan Police Commander Jaime Ríos Puerto immediately pointed out that Coatti had no criminal record and, as far as authorities knew, had not received any threats. "He was a tourist, a scientist; he had no suspicious connections."

The 38-year-old molecular biologist, a Pisa Normale graduate specialised at the Max Planck Institute, had been an employee of the Royal Society of Biology in London until the end of 2024, before resigning to undertake a trip aimed at tourism, volunteering and naturalistic studies in the northern area of Colombia. The researcher was interested in visiting the Tayrona Natural Park.

First Developments

According to Colombian sources, on Sunday, April 6, the first remains of Coatti (head and hands) were found in a suitcase abandoned in the vegetation near the Sierra Nevada stadium. The following day, other remains were found in a trolley under La Platina bridge and a third discovery with different body parts was found in a bag near the Villa Betel neighborhood, not far from the aforementioned stadium.

A gruesome narco-style murder, which does not fit well with the profile of the victim, who had no criminal record, had not received any threats, and was involved in naturalistic research. The initial hypothesis of a possible responsibility on behalf of the local paramilitary groups such as the Gulf Cartel and the Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra was soon left aside and the investigations quickly led to a gang of criminals dedicated to robberies who allegedly lured him on Grindr, a dating app widely used by the LGBT community. Coatti was most likely contacted through a fake profile, and left his hotel believing he was heading to meet a person, but instead found himself facing his attackers who drugged him, robbed and killed him, scattering the dismembered body parts in various areas of the city to complicate the investigation.

The mystery remains as to why Coatti was killed, given that in most cases, the victims are simply abandoned in some remote place. In this case, the situation may have escalated in some way; Coatti may have reacted to the attempted theft or may have seen something he shouldn’t have. According to reports, the 38-year-old was first killed with a series of blows and, only later, cut into pieces.

The Colombian authorities have so far identified four individuals (three males and one female) who are currently at large, while a building in the San José del Pando neighborhood has been seized and traces of the researcher's DNA, and objects belonging to him have been found there.

A major breakthrough in the case came after reconstructing Coatti's movements in the Santa Marta area. It was, in fact, strange for him to leave the central part of the city, where his hotel was located, and head towards the San José del Pando neighborhood. The scientist’s body parts were retrieved in locations around that specific barrio.

The Italian ambassador in Bogotá, Giancarlo Maria Curcio, had already reported the presence in the country of the so-called "scopolamine gangs": criminal groups that use this powerful drug to stun their victims, empty their bank accounts or rob them without leaving a trace in their memory.

Scopolamine's Shadow

Scopolamine, also known as Burandanga and Devil’s Breath (because it “steals the victim’s soul”), is a tropical alkaloid produced by species of plants such as Hyoscyamus Albus and Datura Stramonium. The substance is most commonly used to prevent motion sickness and alleviate post-surgery nausea and vomiting; however, it can also be used for criminal purposes. For instance, it has become common practice among some gangs operating in Latin American countries such as Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Venezuela. Scopolamine induces a disoriented state and leaves victims incapacitated and vulnerable to robbery, sexual assault, and other crimes.

A 2024 investigation by Guillermo Galdos for Channel 4 revealed that between 2020 and 2024, over 80 foreigners have died, only in the city of Medellin, under such circumstances; however, according to local sources, the number could be much higher. The victims are nearly all men, and often were last seen leaving their hotels to meet women on dates after hooking up on apps such as Tinder. Some of the victims end up dying after being drugged, since it can lead to respiratory issues and be fatal.

In 2012, the U.S. Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC) issued a travel advisory warning travelers to Latin America about the risk of being assaulted and robbed by gangs utilising scopolamine:

“One common and particularly dangerous method that criminals use to rob a victim is through the use of drugs. Scopolamine is most often administered in liquid or powder form in foods and beverages. The majority of these incidents occur in nightclubs and bars, and usually, men, perceived to be wealthy, are targeted by young, attractive women…”

In 2012, a Vice documentary exposed the use of scopolamine made by Colombian gangs to rob foreign tourists. Among other things, this substance leaves victims unable to recall many details of what happened to them, making it impossible for the police to identify suspects.

In the case of Alessandro Coatti, the reasons for his murder and mutilation remain unclear. For all we now know, it is only possible to speculate while waiting for the fugitives to be arrested.

May 16, 2022 — No Comments

Trail of Blood in Colombia’s Tourist Resort: The murder of Paraguayan anti-narco prosecutor Marcelo Pecci

Author: Giovanni Giacalone.

On the morning of May 10^th Paraguay’s anti-drug prosecutor Marcelo Pecci was murdered by two hitmen on a jet ski who reached the beach where he was vacationing with his wife and shot him in the head and the back. The murder took place in Barù, a renowned location just 45 minutes away from the city of Cartagena, Colombia. The jet ski was rented by the killers in Playa Blanca, approximately 3 km away from the resort where Pecci and his wife were staying.

“One of the men got out and without saying a word he shot Marcelo twice, one shot hit him in the face and another in the back,” Pecci’s wife, Claudia Aguilera, told the newspaper El Tiempo. The hitmen then fled in the same jet ski. A hotel security guard was also shot at, although he was not injured. Prosecutor Pecci was traveling without bodyguards and his wife said that they had not received any type of threat. Additionally, the Colombian police forces were not aware of his presence in the country.

The couple had traveled from Paraguay to Cartagena on May 5^th to spend their honeymoon there. The following day, after a quick visit to the city’s historic center, they reached the Decameron Hotel and Resort in Barù, where they planned to spend the rest of the time before heading back to Paraguay on May 10th, as indicated by the message published on Monday May 9^th by Aguilera on social media: “The last sunset in Barú, but we will have millions more together.” At approximately 10:30 am on Tuesday morning, the last day of vacation, Pecci was gunned down in front of his wife and tourists at the hotel’s private beach. A group of Paraguayan tourists who were at the same hotel as Pecci and were leaving on the same day complained that they were held for questioning by the Colombian police for hours, and added that at the hotel and resort there was no visible security, as reported by ABC TV Paraguay.

Marcelo Pecci was a high-level prosecutor who specialized in contrasting drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime. He had recently participated in the operation Ultranza Py against drug trafficking in Paraguay and he was also investigating the infiltration of Ndrangheta in the country. According to Gen. Jorge Luis Vargas, head of Colombia's national police, Pecci was the victim of "transnational" criminals working across borders and the murder was very likely highly planned, with a large amount of money spent to carry it out. He also added that narcos or even international terrorists could be behind the murder.

On the same day of the homicide, the Colombian police released a picture of one of the two alleged killers, a man dressed in black, wearing a Panama hat, with a Caribbean accent. The Colombian authorities announced a reward of up to 500 million Colombian pesos ($12,000) to anyone who can provide information about the assassins. The owner of the jet ski that was rented to the two hitmen said that they paid $50 to use the vehicle for 30 minutes, but they returned it just 15 minutes later.

*Image*: A poster released by the Cartagena Metropolitan Police asking for information and help in identification of the alleged killers.

There are currently two versions regarding the killers, one is that they followed Pecci and his wife all the way from Paraguay to Barù, traveling on the same plane; the second one is that they were contracted in Cartagena to conduct the hit. Rocio Vallejo, a member of the Paraguayan Parliament and the Patria Querida party claimed that organized crime is behind it, she pointed the finger against the “narco-politica” and even accused some Parliament members of being linked to the narcos, adding that “narcotrafficking knows no borders”.

As explained to the ITSS by the Brazil-based investigative journalist Maria Zuppello, who is specialized in organized crime and terrorism in Latin America: “The murder of Pecci is a tragic page not only for Paraguay but for all of Latin America that lost a prosecutor of great value. The various leads that are being followed range from the terrorist matrix of Hezbollah to the former president of Paraguay, Horacio Cartes, who was already targeted by the Dea for money laundering and narco-activity in the United States. It is now clear how Latin America has become a privileged hub for narco-terrorism”. Following the murder, the Paraguayan police searched the prison cell of Lebanese narcotrafficker Kassem Mohammed Hijazi, who was arrested in August of 2021in Ciudad del Este thanks to an investigation led by Pecci with the support of the Dea. In the meantime, Noticias Caracol revealed that four Paraguayan women who had arrived on the same flight and were staying at the same hotel as Pecci, and a person considered very close to the murdered prosecutor, are under the radar of the Colombian authorities.

It is unclear why Pecci, considering his high-level profile, was traveling without bodyguards and had not warned Colombian authorities about his presence there. It is possible that since he hadn’t received any threat, as claimed by his wife Claudia Alvarez, he thought that he would be safe in a place like Barù, renowned for international tourism and with a very low crime rate if compared to other parts of Colombia; however, the killer were after him. The investigations are currently underway with the help of the Dea, the Fbi, Interpol, and it is plausible that there will be news in the upcoming days.

November 23, 2021 — No Comments

The arrest of Dairo Usaga “Otoniel” and the future of the Urabeños cartel in Colombia

By: Giovanni Giacalone

*Image Source*: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dario-Antonio-Usuga-David-1.webp

On October 23rd, the Colombian special forces arrested Dairo Antonio Usuga David, alias “Otoniel”, leader of the Urabeños drug cartel and paramilitary group, who had been on the run since 2011. The operation, carried out by a special team codenamed “El Blanco”, was initiated in early October, when the Colombian intelligence identified Usaga in the Uraba sub-region of Antioquia, north-western Colombia, not far from the Panamanian border. The fugitive was identified through the surveillance of cartel members who were carrying medical material for the treatment of a kidney disease that Usaga was known to suffer from. The special forces surrounded him in a remote mountainous area, while helicopters and drones flew over, and Navy ships were stationed off the coast to prevent a potential escape by sea.

In mid-April, Usaga had been spotted and photographed while onboard a longboat traveling between the Verde and Esmeralda rivers in the Paramillo area. The fugitive was accompanied by two armed men and a dog. That was the last time the cartel leader was photographed before his recent capture. In 2017 the US Department of State offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest and, in 2017, Colombian police dropped flyers from helicopters offering a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture, but without any positive outcome. Between the end of 2020 and early 202, Colombian authorities intensified their efforts to capture Usuga, following an increase in levels of cocaine production.

Los Urabeños

The Urabeños, also known as the Gulf Clan (Clan del Golfo), take their name from Uraba, the already cited north-western region of Colombia, which is extremely important for drug cartels as it offers direct access to the Caribbean and Pacific coasts from the departments of Antioquia and Chocó. The group’s origins can be traced back to the far-right paramilitary force Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia-AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia) and to Daniel Rendon “Don Mario” who, after the 2006 demobilization of the AUC, took thousands of former fighters with him and expanded his drug trafficking operations and networks in the Uraba area, quickly expanding in over 15 departments including Cordoba, La Valle del Cauca, Santander, La Guajira and even the area of Medellin.

Don Mario was arrested by the Colombian police in April of 2009 and the cartel was taken over by the Usaga brothers, Dairo Antonio “Otoniel” and Juan de Dios “Giovany”, both former paramilitary members who had known Rendon since the 1990s.

“Otoniel” has an interesting background as he had initially joined the Ejercito Popular de Liberacion (Popular Liberation Army), a Colombian communist guerrilla group mainly active between 1967 and 1991, when it began to break apart. However, he soon switched sides and joined the far-right paramilitary and narco-group Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, active between 1997 and 2006 against the FARC and ELN. It is interesting to notice how the Usaga brothers only had approximately 250 men at their orders when Rendon was arrested in April 2009. However, thanks to the two cartel leaders, the organization quickly grew in numbers, expanding operations and territory control. “Otoniel” took over the cartel in January 2012, when his brother “Giovany” was killed by the police during a raid in the Choco department. On that occasion, the new leader offered a $1,000 reward for each police officer killed in revenge for his brother’s murder. Usaga “Otoniel” had managed to escape capture for ten years, constantly on the move, hiding in grueling parts of Cordoba and Antioquia, protected by a small group of men. However, his being on the run ended on October 23^rd.

The aftermath

The Urabeños have a particular organizational structure that enables them to quickly spread their presence throughout the Colombian territory and to continue operations when one of its leaders is arrested or killed, and when some of their cells are neutralized. As explained by InsightCrime, such a structure relies on blocs that receive direct orders from the cartel’s leadership, they retain specific territories and have internal lines of command. Some of them are also in charge of smaller substructures.

Additionally, Urabeños also rely on franchises, mostly local gangs that have no formal links to the cartel nor its chain of command, as they are simply sub-contracted to operate for them, in their name. It is not very different from what Isis does with terror cells throughout the world that perpetrate attacks in their name, but that are not structurally integrated into the organization. As indicated by InsightCrime, this is a win-win situation for both sides. “For Urabeños this strategy opens doors to criminal income, hitmen and a greater territorial presence, even if indirectly. For smaller gangs, the Urabeños represent an important ally to help them establish local dominance and to overcome rivals”.

It is very unlikely that the arrest of “Otoniel” will have a strong impact on the cartel’s narco-trafficking activity, not only due to the organization’s already cited flexible structure but also because there are several deputy leaders ready to take Usaga’s place. Among them, the two with more chances seem to be Wilmer Giraldo “Siopas”, indicated as second in command of the Urabeños and in charge of the southwestern part of Antioquia; Jobanis de Jesús Ávila “Chiquito Malo”, in charge of cocaine production and exportation. However, José Gonzalo Sánchez, alias “Gonzalito”, and Orozman Osten Blanco “Flechas” are two other possible candidates.

There is also a possibility that the cartel will break down into different factions looking for control of narcotrafficking, but that would more likely be a short-term option since it would negatively impact the cartel’s trafficking activity in the medium-long term, something that the Urabeños want to avoid at all costs, considering that narco-business is thriving.