Source: Insight Crime. All Rights Reserved.
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article was previously published by Insight
Crime and can be read here.
For decades, Colombia’s civil conflict spilled
across into Venezuela, in the form of the desperate displaced fleeing violence,
and Colombia’s warring factions seeking sanctuary.
The human wave now flows in
the other direction, mainly the economically displaced, hungry and sick
Venezuelans looking for a better life, and prepared to work for a hot meal.
Colombia’s civil conflict is winding down, with just one remaining warring
faction still in the field, the National Liberation Army (ELN).
Venezuela provides the ultimate sanctuary for the
ELN, and is the key base from which this rebel army plots its expansion.
Sanctuary in Venezuela in no small part explains the ELN’s unwillingness to
compromise at the peace table.
The Colombia-Venezuela border is now one of the
principal regions of criminality in Latin America, generating hundreds of
millions of dollars in illicit revenues. It is home to a plethora of criminal
economies, and feeds dozens of criminal groups.
Criminal
Economies on the Border
The Colombian border region of Catatumbo, in the
department of Norte de Santander, is the cheapest place in the world to produce
cocaine. It is also now one of Colombia’s most prolific drug production and
cultivation areas.
The Andean mountain slopes here have some of the highest
yields of cocaine per hectare, over seven kilograms per year, according to
sources in Colombia’s anti-narcotic police. The main precursor chemical in the
processing of cocaine is gasoline, and thanks to Venezuela’s fuel subsidies,
this is dirt-cheap.
There is now a wide and deep pool of criminal labor made up of desperate Venezuelans all along the frontier.
The other two definitive factors in the cocaine
trade are proximity to a departure point — in this case Venezuela itself — and
a cheap labor force to harvest, process and move cocaine shipments.
Venezuelans
increasingly provide that labor force, and are now prepared to assume far
greater risks, for far less money, than their Colombian counterparts. There is
now a wide and deep pool of criminal labor made up of desperate Venezuelans all
along the frontier.
Colombian cocaine is pouring across the border
into Venezuela, along three main axes: straight across from the production
center in Catatumbo, into the Venezuelan states of Táchira and Zulia; across
Colombia’s eastern plains into the state of Apure; and along the rivers that
are the superhighways of the southern jungles into the state of Amazonas.
There are no clear numbers on the amount of
cocaine transiting Venezuela, but two international intelligence sources,
speaking on condition of anonymity, said they would not be surprised if it were
in excess of 400 metric tons a year.
At current prices of 4.000 dollars a kilogram
in Venezuela, that amount of drugs is worth 1.6 billion dollars. The costs of
transiting Venezuela are estimated at around 1.000 dollars, meaning that
organized crime in this troubled Andean nation could be earning up to 400
million dollars a year, just from the cocaine trade.
But cocaine is not the only illegal economy along
the border.
Contraband gasoline, in large part controled by
the ELN, is another key illicit activity in the region. A liter of 95 octane
fuel costs 6 bolivares (approximately 1/100th of a US cent) in Venezuela.
However, on the border, that amount sells for 170.000 bolivares (between 2 and
2.50 dollars).
Hundreds of barrels are transported from the Venezuelan state of Apure to the neighboring Colombian state of Arauca with the complicity of members of Venezuela’s National Guard.
Through photographic evidence, InSight Crime was able to confirm that
hundreds of barrels are transported from the Venezuelan state of Apure to the
neighboring Colombian state of Arauca with the complicity of members of
Venezuela’s National Guard, whose silence is purchased with hush money.
On the other hand, in the states of Amazonas and
Bolívar in southern Venezuela, the ELN and dissidents of the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) are engaged in mining gold and coltan,
exporting it across the border into the Colombian states of Guainía and
Vichada.
This illicit enterprise also operates with the complicity of the
Venezuelan military and involves the exploitation of local indigenous
communities.
Subsidized food rations provided by the
Venezuelan government have also become a form of subsistence utilized not only
by crime groups, but also by average citizens.
From Apure to Arauca, and from
the Venezuelan state of Zulia to the Colombian states of La Guajira and Cesar,
food is transported by clandestine routes.
Beef is a common contraband item.
Even though it is traded for a lower price than the official one in Colombia,
it still generates significant profits because the cost in Venezuela is very
low due to the large difference in the exchange rate and the lack of liquidity.
However, severe food shortages in Venezuela have
reduced the contraband trade, and have even generated a reverse phenomenon;
smugglers now traffic food into Venezuela due to the lack of items there.
The 2015 closure of the border by President
Nicolás Maduro further strengthened the hold that the National Guard had on
smuggling of all kinds.
Stricter border
controls cut out many of the small-scale smugglers, and passed the criminal
monopoly to the Venezuelan military. The smaller, independent smuggling
operations found their room for maneuver severely limited, while the
larger-scale mafias with close ties to the National Guard flourished.
Criminal
Sanctuary
Political tolerance and state corruption in
Venezuela, combined with the proliferation of illegal economies, have turned
the Venezuelan border states into criminal sanctuaries.
While Venezuelan
organized crime structures, both state and non-state, are strengthening, it is
Colombian groups that have traditionally exercised more influence in
Venezuela’s border region. With the 2017 demobilization of the FARC there has
been a great deal of change in the criminal landscape along the frontier.
Political tolerance and state corruption in Venezuela, combined with the proliferation of illegal economies, have turned the Venezuelan border states into criminal sanctuaries.
Tolerance towards the Colombian Marxist rebel
groups began under Chávez. Both the ELN and the FARC appear to have been
tolerated, if not actively supported, by Venezuela under Chávez.
He viewed
these groups as ideological allies, although his attitude towards them was
complex, and he ran hot and cold according to when it suited him. Chávez let
both groups use Venezuelan territory but also moved against them when it was
convenient.
Under Maduro, Venezuela played an important role in the peace
process with the FARC, but apart from that there has been no evidence of him
supporting rebel presence in Venezuela.
However, Maduro’s fight for political
survival has taken up all his attention, meaning that the Colombian groups on
Venezuelan soil have faced little government pushback and have been allowed to
flourish.
The ELN
Perhaps the single biggest Colombian group
operating on Venezuelan territory today is the ELN. For more than 30 years the ELN has seen much
of its leadership and rear guard based in the Venezuelan states of Apure and
Zulia, with more recent expansion into Táchira and Amazonas.
The ELN’s most powerful fighting division, the
Eastern War Front is based in the border state of Apure and its Colombian
counterpart, Arauca.
According to Colombian military sources, up to 90% of the
Eastern War Front’s fighting capacity and logistics are situated in Apure. InSight Crime had other confirmed
sightings of ELN in the Apure municipalities of Páez, Rómulo Gallego and Muñoz,
where the rebels run smuggling operations.
Sources on the Venezuelan side of the border have
also charted ELN presence in Táchira, particularly the municipality of
Fernández Feo, where local inhabitants have seen rebels walking around in
civilian clothing but carrying rifles and small arms.
Other sources have
confirmed ELN presence in the states of Amazonas and Bolívar. In Zulia, only
Colombian security forces mentioned ELN presence, although local residents in
the municipality of Tibú, Norte de Santander, have spoken of ELN rebels
crossing the border.
There have even been reports of the ELN handing out
propaganda material in schools, and government food parcels in Venezuela.
The Eastern War Front has historically been led
by Gustavo Aníbal Giraldo Quinchía, alias “Pablito,” who was admitted in 2015
to the ELN’s highest body, the Central Command (COCE). He is currently the
group’s military chief.
He has used his sanctuary in Apure to strengthen the
Eastern War Front and to launch attacks into Colombia. He is believed to have
for some years been based out of a farm in El Nula, expropriated by President
Chávez.
Pablito is opposed to peace talks with the
Colombian government, believing that the “current conditions do not favor
negotiations”. Pablito is expanding from his strongholds in Apure and Arauca
into the Venezuelan states of Táchira and Amazonas, as well as into the state
of Vichada on the Colombian side.
He has been filling the vacuum left by the
demobilized FARC rebels, seeking to not only absorb territory, but also the
illegal economies that previously sustained the FARC.
While the group is expanding its finances and
manpower, Pablito and other radical elements in the ELN see no benefit in
negotiating peace with the Colombian government. Venezuela is a key factor in
this ELN thinking.
FARC
Dissidents
While the FARC as a national actor with
belligerent status is now gone, there are growing dissident factions spreading
across the country, and Venezuela is becoming a rear-guard area and source of
funding for some of these elements.
Gener García Molina, alias “Jhon 40,” one of the
FARC’s most notorious drug traffickers and a former head of the rebels’ 43rd
Front in the central Colombian department of Meta, has established a base
across the border in the Venezuelan state of Amazonas, with elements of the
“Acacio Medina” Front.
Jhon 40 was once in charge of the finances for the
FARC’s Eastern Bloc, which operated in seven Colombian departments: Arauca,
Casanare, Meta, Guaviare, Vaupés, Vichada and Guainía. It also had
relationships with various Brazilian and Colombian drug-traffickers including
Daniel “El Loco” Barrera, arrested in Venezuela in 2012.
Jhon 40 therefore has
extensive knowledge of the drug trade, international contacts and perhaps runs
his own cocaine routes.
By relocating to Amazonas, Jhon 40 can receive
drug shipments moving across Colombia’s Eastern plains, where the dissidents of
the FARC’s 1st Front have their stronghold, as well as along the rivers that
spill into the tri-border jungles of Colombia, Venezuela and Brazil. Jhon 40 is
also likely running, or at least “taxing,” the illegal mining operations in
Amazonas, which include gold and coltan.
Former Amazonas Governor Liborio Guarulla
denounced both FARC and ELN activity in the state of Amazonas, and was recently
banned from politics by the Maduro government.
Jhon 40 is just one element of the growing FARC
dissidents, likely headed by Miguel Botache Santanilla, alias “Gentil Duarte,”
who was expelled from the FARC towards the end of last year. He is the highest
profile dissident leader.
These dissidents are based in Guaviare, parts of Meta
and Vichada, as well as the jungle department of Guainía.
Venezuela is now an
economic lifeline and sanctuary for many of the FARC dissidents. The total
number of FARC fighters and militiamen still active could number up to 2.500,
and Venezuela is an important strategic rear-guard area and finance center for
them.
The EPL
Another Colombian group pushing into Venezuela is
the last remnant of the Popular Liberation Army (EPL), called “Los Pelusos” by
the government to avoid recognizing their guerrilla roots.
The EPL officially
demobilized in 1991, and this last faction in Norte de Santander has become a
major player in the drug trade along the Venezuelan border.
In the aftermath of
the FARC demobilization in 2017, the EPL has engaged in aggressive expansion,
declaring war on the ELN, and expanding out of its Catatumbo stronghold.
The group was weakened by the 2015 death of
former leader Victor Ramón Navarro, alias “Megateo,” and the 2016 arrest of
Guillermo León Aguirre, alias “David León.” Megateo ran drug trafficking for
the ELN and FARC out of Catatumbo.
But that vacuum was filled by an individual
using the alias “Pácora,” whom authorities have not yet been able to identify.
Pácora is leading the EPL expansion, including forays in Venezuela aimed at
securing drug trafficking routes, strengthening military capabilities,
recruiting ex-security force members and training snipers. There have been
reports of EPL presence in the town of El Cubo, in the Venezuelan state of
Zulia.
Colombian
Mafia
Since the 2006 demobilization of the paramilitary
army of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a plethora of
Colombian criminal groups have developed, initially called BACRIM (“bandas criminales”) by the government,
but now designated as Organized Armed Groups (GAOs). Of these, two have
significant presence in Venezuela: the Rastrojos and the Urabeños.
Indeed, there has been fighting between the two
groups in Venezuelan territory as they seek control of smuggling corridors.
However, the fragmentation of these groups has meant that they are increasingly
being overshadowed along the Venezuelan border by the ELN, EPL and FARC
dissidents, and in many cases are now working in tandem with these rebel
groups, as well as with corrupt elements of the Venezuela security forces.
The FBL
One of the principal irregular Venezuelan actors
active along the frontier is the Bolivarian Forces of Liberation (FBL), a
strange phenomenon of a pro-government rebel group, modeled on the Colombian
example.
While initially the FBL worked closely with the ELN, the FBL now views
the ELN as competition, since the ELN has such strong presence on the Venezuela
side of the border.
In recent years, the FBL have had much more contact with
the FARC, and indeed the Citizens Ombudsman in Arauca described them as a “child
of the FARC”.
Numbering between 1.000 and 4.000 members, the
FBL engages in extortion and is active in local politics, allegedly receiving
funding via communal councils, a Chávez-era invention intended to allow a
greater degree of direct participation by citizens in local governance.
There is now very little bilateral collaboration between Venezuela and Colombia, allowing transnational organized crime free reign.
Sources
in Venezuela have asserted the FBL have links to the drug trade, but we have
found no concrete evidence of this. FBL presence has been registered in the
states of Apure, Táchira, Barinas, Zulia, Mérida, Portuguesa, Cojedes and
Carabobo, as well as Caracas.
The FBL may have received material support and
training from the FARC in the past. With reports of FARC dissident presence in
Venezuela, some of this may be the result of working with FBL elements.
The Future
Colombia has been exporting organized crime to
Venezuela for decades. What has changed now is that Venezuela has stepped up in
criminal terms and is now an equal partner in many criminal economies.
The criminal economies along the border are by
their very nature transnational. Therefore, any meaningful response to them
must be transnational as well.
Yet there is now very little bilateral
collaboration between Venezuela and Colombia, allowing transnational organized
crime free reign.
In an April 2018 interview, Colombian President
Juan Manuel Santos accused the Venezuelan government of using criminal gangs to
“perpetuate itself in power.” President Maduro responded by describing Colombia
as a “failed state.” Thus, there is little hope of cooperation against
organized crime under the current administrations. Could the presidential
elections in Venezuela and Colombia change this?
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos accused the Venezuelan government of using criminal gangs to “perpetuate itself in power.” President Maduro responded by describing Colombia as a “failed state.”
The answer is probably not. Maduro has been
re-elected. And in Colombia, Iván Duque, supported by former President Álvaro
Uribe, won the first round of the presidential elections on May 27 and is the
best-placed candidate for the second round on June 17.
When interviewed about
the situation in Catatumbo, on the border with Venezuela, Duque clearly
revealed his attitude to the neighboring nation: “It needs security, justice
and infrastructure, because there is a drug trafficking corridor, promoted by
the Cartel of the Suns, which is headed by the Venezuelan government.
I’m going
to go to the UN Security Council to denounce what is happening on the frontier
with Colombia, which is the consent of a government that has drug trafficking
structures, taking advantage of a cocaine production corridor.”
So what can we expect for the rest of 2018? An
increase in the flow of cocaine into Venezuela, as coca cultivation in Colombia
continues to grow; a strengthening of all Colombia’s illegal groups on
Venezuelan soil; and desperate Venezuelans being recruited by Colombia’s
illegal groups and organized crime as they fight for survival with few legal
alternatives.
All of this adds up to a strengthening of criminal economies
along the border, with transnational organized crime establishing even deeper
roots in this troubled region.