The borderland cocaine wars

With US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saying the US will resume attacks on Venezuela if the government doesn’t cooperate with US security concerns. Chief among those concerns are Colombian armed groups who smuggle cocaine into Venezuela.

To really dig into the data about exactly how that works, and what ongoing conflict in the borderlands might look like with US involvement, we sat down with Adriaan Alsema from Colombia Reports.

It’s everything you wanted to know about every armed group on the frontier, and exactly how the cocaine trade works. We also talk about a few things you wish you’d never learned.

We understand that keeping all the armed groups straight can be confusing. Here is a handy guide to the acronyms!

* AGC: “Clan del Golfo”

* ACSN: The Conquistador Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevadas: a paramilitary group that operates primary near the Atlantic coast. Also called “the Pachenkos”

* ELN: The National Liberation Army

* Frente Comunes del Sur: a former ELN group that splintered off to engage in negotiations with the Colombian government. They are in the process of disarming

* Segunda Marquetalia, EMC, and EMFB: Three distinct FARC dissident groups that all maintain a presence in the Colombian-Venezuelan borderlands

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Hasta pronto, piratas!