The geography of the vote split along familiar regional lines. De la Espriella ran strongest in the Andean interior and the eastern plains, winning the departments of Antioquia, Santander, Cundinamarca, Meta, Casanare and Arauca, and posting lopsided margins in cities such as Medellín (819,285 to 421,839), Cúcuta (306,536 to 76,069) and Bucaramanga (229,851 to 117,895). Cepeda carried Bogotá (2,235,514 to 1,933,243), the Pacific and southern departments of Chocó, Cauca, Nariño, Caquetá and Putumayo, and the major Caribbean coastal cities — including Cali, Cartagena, Santa Marta and Barranquilla (375,178 to 309,652), the very city where de la Espriella delivered his victory speech.

Speaking before supporters at Barranquilla’s “Ventana al Mundo,” the president-elect used that address to pivot quickly from the language of the campaign to the language of governing — framing his win less as a partisan triumph than as a national mandate, and laying down early markers on security, the economy, and Colombia’s posture toward the rest of the world.

“This victory does not belong to one man, it does not belong to a party, it does not belong to a region,” he told the crowd. “This victory belongs to all of Colombia.”

A message of conciliation

The most insistent theme of the speech was reconciliation. De la Espriella repeatedly addressed Colombians who did not vote for him, presenting unity as a constitutional obligation rather than a courtesy.

“I am going to govern for all Colombians — for those who voted for me and for those who chose another candidate,” he said. “There will be no victors and no vanquished, there will be no retaliation, there will be no persecution, because in a democracy there are no irreconcilable enemies; there are compatriots who think differently, who think differently, but who have exactly the same rights as we do.”

Citing Article 188 of the Constitution, which holds that the president symbolizes national unity, he said he would assume that role “as a sacred mandate.” To those who opposed him, he added: “This is your victory too, because democracy works precisely when the people decide freely… Your rights, even if you did not vote for me, will be respected. Your opinions will be heard. You will never have to fear for thinking differently.”

He also pledged to earn trust through performance: “My purpose will be to earn your trust with results, not with speeches; with deeds and works, not with promises; with consistency and not with excuses.”

Inclusion across regions and groups

De la Espriella wove a deliberately inclusive geography through the speech, invoking Colombia’s regions and communities one by one. He described a homeland “of all religions… of all ancestral communities, of all young people, of all grandparents, of all entrepreneurs, of all journalists, of all peasant farmers” — “one homeland of all, for all, and built by all.”

In a passage that named nearly every corner of the country, he reached explicitly toward historically peripheral regions: “We are all the lullaby of the Pacific. We are all the grandeur of the Andes. We are all the strength and magic of the Caribbean. We are all the vastness of the plains… We are all the majesty of the Orinoco region… We are all the life of the Amazon. We are all the beauty of our island region.”

His closing call to action was addressed to “the young, the peasant farmers, the women, the business owners, the workers, the soldiers, the police, the mothers, the grandparents, Colombians in general, inside and outside our land” — a list that paired rural and working-class Colombians with the diaspora, whom he singled out elsewhere as “decisive” to the result.

Crime, security, and the rule of law

The speech’s hardest edges were reserved for crime and security — the area where de la Espriella signaled the sharpest break with the outgoing government. He vowed to restore state authority across the whole of the national territory.

“There will be no zones off-limits to the State. There will be no criminals who are immune and untouchable. There will be no organizations above the Constitution and the law,” he said. Addressing “the drug traffickers, the terrorists, the kidnappers, the extortionists, the corrupt who steal the people’s resources,” he declared: “I notify you tonight that Colombia once again has a government and a State.”

Crucially for the rule-of-law framing, he placed that crackdown inside constitutional limits: offenders “will be pursued without respite within the framework of the Constitution and the laws of the Republic… Because true peace is not born of impunity. True peace is born of justice.” He promised the armed forces and police a president who would back and protect them from his August 7 inauguration onward, arguing that “there is no liberty without security.”

A plan of action built on institutional restraint

On governance, de la Espriella presented himself as “a man formed in the law, respectful of the independence of the branches of power, of the Congress and of the high courts,” and promised “an absolutely democratic government and a guarantor of liberty and of our institutions.”

He sketched a “new order” defined by self-imposed limits on executive power: a Congress “able to legislate without pressure from the government,” mayors and governors steering their territories “with the national government as an ally,” and a judicial branch “respected and its decisions obeyed without hesitation, in its full autonomy.” For investors accustomed to weighing institutional stability, the emphasis on predictable, rules-based government was among the speech’s clearest signals.

The economy: recovery without “magic solutions”

De la Espriella was candid about the fiscal inheritance, describing “a nation that is divided, battered, in debt” and one “that demands reconstruction.” He pointedly declined to over-promise: “I am not going to promise miracles, I am not going to deceive the people with magic solutions. Colombia’s national recovery will demand work, sacrifice, discipline, and perseverance.”

He named the health system as a specific priority — “a health system that does not let our people die” — and tied anti-corruption to economic credibility, pledging to “govern with zero corruption, with no room for petty politics, to become again what we ought to be: a respected nation.” The broader economic vision he had invoked earlier was one of “a nation of property owners, of opportunities, of progress for all.”

Foreign relations: a values-based realignment

De la Espriella’s foreign-policy signals pointed toward a clear realignment with democratic and Western partners. “Colombia is once again a firm, reliable, and respectable democracy,” he said. “We will once again take our place among the free nations.”

He drew an explicit line on partnerships: “We are going to strengthen our relations with all the countries that respect democracy. We will not have relations with countries that do not respect liberty and the rule of law.” Colombia, he said, would be “a serious partner, a loyal ally, and a firm voice in defense of liberty on this continent” — language that suggests warmer ties with the United States and like-minded democracies and a cooler stance toward authoritarian-leaning governments in the region.

A pro-growth agenda

For a business audience, the speech bundled several reassuring signals: respect for the independence of Congress and the courts, an explicit anti-corruption and rule-of-law commitment, a security agenda framed as restoring state authority, sober acknowledgment of the debt burden rather than populist spending promises, and a foreign policy oriented toward stable democratic partners. Set against the conciliatory tone toward opponents, the overall message was one of continuity of institutions paired with a change of direction on security and governance.

De la Espriella closed on the note that ran through the address — unity as the country’s path forward: “Today a single Colombia is born, determined to be greater, more joyful, more prosperous, more secure.”

Quotations from the president-elect are drawn from his victory address as delivered in Barranquilla and translated from the original Spanish. Vote totals reflect the Registraduría Nacional’s preliminary count (preconteo) as of the morning of June 22, 2026, and remained subject to the official escrutinio.

Headline photo: Colombian President Elect Abelardo de la Espriella (left) and Vice President Elect José Manuel Restrepo (photo: Twitter screen capture)

Two men. Both running to be the next president of Colombia. Both swear they are tough, that they are clean, that they are the answer to a country that is exhausted. And both of them have a problem with the company they keep.

One is a defense lawyer who built his career representing mobsters, paramilitaries, and at least one alleged front man for the Maduro regime — and he tells you those relationships were strictly professional. The other fought to spring a FARC commander out of a maximum-security holding cell — and he tells you that relationship was strictly professional too. One says, in effect, “I only knew the narco because I was his attorney.” The other says, “I only knew the guerrilla because I was a peace negotiator.” Same sentence, opposite ends of the political spectrum. It is the strangest mirror in Colombian politics.

This Sunday, June 21, Colombians return to the polls for the runoff. In the first round on May 31, the right’s Abelardo de la Espriella came first with about 43.7 percent. The left’s Iván Cepeda came second with about 40.9 percent. No one else is left. Whoever wins walks into the Casa de Nariño on August 7.

What follows is an analysis, not an endorsement. I am pro-business, anti-crime, and anti-communist, and I am not Colombian, so I will not presume to tell Colombians how to vote. What I can do is lay out who these two men are, where they came from, and the honest pros and cons of each — because both carry serious problems, and readers with capital, operations, or ties in Colombia deserve them laid out straight. Much of the biographical reporting here draws on the long-form profiles published by La Silla Vacía, among the best political journalism in the country, and on Finance Colombia‘s own coverage of the race.

Who is Abelardo de la Espriella?

Start with de la Espriella, since he holds a slight polling lead. His campaign events are not subtle: the lights go yellow, blue, and red, footage of tigers plays on the screens, smoke machines fire, the national anthem swells, and out he comes flanked by bodyguards in a bulletproof vest, declaring, “Here is your tiger, roaring and biting.” The tiger is his symbol — claw, territory, attack — and the crowd chant is ponle la raya al tigre, “put the stripe on the tiger.” It is a show, and he runs it the same way every time, with discipline.

According to La Silla Vacía’s profile, Abelardo was born in Bogotá in 1978 and grew up in Sahagún and Montería, in Córdoba on the Caribbean side. His mother calls the family riquitos de pueblo — “small-town rich.” A respected name and political connections, but not the rosca, the Bogotá elite, and not one of the great national fortunes. His father was a Liberal Party congressman and an early backer of Álvaro Uribe in Córdoba in 2001; when Uribe reached the presidency, he made the elder De la Espriella a notary. That is where the long relationship between the De la Espriella and Uribe families begins.

From childhood, Abelardo wanted to be seen. By his family’s account he sang opera in the bathroom, had a children’s radio program his father arranged, got himself onto regional television as a teenager, and promised his grandmother a limousine in Miami. He studied law at the Sergio Arboleda University in Bogotá — not an academic powerhouse, but a real breeding ground for the Colombian right — and hustled the whole way through, selling whiskey, perfume, clothing, and emeralds on consignment. The man has always been building a legend about himself.

Here is the part he does not lead with on stage. De la Espriella made his name as a defense lawyer, and not for choirboys. His client list reads like a rogues’ gallery: politicians tied to paramilitary groups, the Nule brothers of the carrusel de contratos contracting scandal in Bogotá, the pyramid-scheme operator David Murcia of DMG, the disgraced Constitutional Court magistrate Jorge Pretelt, and — the big one — Álex Saab, the man the United States accused of being a front man for Nicolás Maduro. Early in his career, at 26, he did legal and public-relations work around the paramilitary demobilization at Santa Fe de Ralito through an NGO he ran. His childhood friend from Córdoba is Salvatore Mancuso, the paramilitary chief.

He will tell you — and it is a legitimate argument — that every defendant has a right to counsel, and that defending an unpopular client is not the same as committing the client’s crimes. Fair enough. We will return to it.

After the lawyering came the brand. He launched a rum called Ron Defensor, “the Defender,” with the vallenato star Silvestre Dangond. He launched a clothing line, released music, wrote books, went through an atheist phase, and then, roughly six years ago, underwent a very public religious conversion. Now he is the “God and family” candidate who calls himself “the Cyrus of Colombia.” By his own design he is a sybarite: Italian suits every year, a Miami mansion valued north of $5 million USD, a private plane, the whole production.

Three facts to keep in your carriel for later. First, he has never held elected office; he ran for a Bogotá council seat as a student in the 1990s, lost, and stayed out of electoral politics for nearly thirty years. Second, he holds three citizenships — American, Italian, and Colombian. Third, his running mate is José Manuel Restrepo, a name that returns in a big way when we reach the pros.

“The ‘tough on crime’ candidate has spent his career defending criminals, and the ‘human rights’ candidate stays silent on half the human rights abuses in his own backyard.” — Loren Moss, Finance Colombia

Who is Iván Cepeda?

If de la Espriella’s story is about a man who wanted to be seen, Cepeda’s is about a man shaped by a death.

On August 9, 1994, a young Iván Cepeda took a bus to Javeriana University, where he taught philosophy, after letting his father leave the house first. On the way he came upon ambulances, police cars, and a crowd around a bullet-riddled car. It was his father’s car. Manuel Cepeda, a senator for the Unión Patriótica, had just been assassinated.

The detail that explains Iván Cepeda is what he did next. He did not collapse over the body. He pulled from his jacket a column his father had written about another murdered activist, crossed the street to tell his wife, and then turned and spoke to journalists — composed, on message, calling on the president and the courts to act. “When my father was murdered,” he later said, “I already knew how I should act, what I should say.” He turned private grief into public, political language. La Silla Vacía describes his entire method of politics as organized around the truth of the victims, and that is exactly right.

Cepeda was born in 1962, while his father was in prison for interviewing a survivor of the army’s bombing of Marquetalia, the peasant enclave that became the founding myth of the FARC. His parents, Manuel Cepeda and Yira Castro, were journalists, communists, and revolutionaries; politics was the air the household breathed. At 13 he was in the Communist Youth. At 17, after his mother’s death, his father sent him to study philosophy in Sofia, Bulgaria. He returned in 1987, by his own account disillusioned with Soviet Marxism and the privilege he had seen inside the party there.

Abelardo de la Espriella is a millionaire defense attorney, singer & rum impresario. (photo: Twitter screencapture)

His father’s assassination was the turning point. The Unión Patriótica — a party born of a peace process, a vehicle for the FARC and the Communist Party to enter electoral politics — was then systematically exterminated, with thousands of members killed. Cepeda channeled all of it. He created the Manuel Cepeda Foundation, built memorial galleries with families of the disappeared, and founded MOVICE, the Movement of Victims of State Crimes. He pursued his father’s case until the Colombian state was held responsible and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the country.

Then he found his great adversary: Álvaro Uribe. For Cepeda, Uribe symbolizes the establishment he believes must confess its responsibility for paramilitarism and the killing of the left. He spent years pursuing Uribe — prison visits to extradited paramilitaries in the United States, the 2014 debate in Congress — and that work ultimately produced the witness-tampering case that put the former president on trial. Cepeda became, as La Silla Vacía puts it, the leftist who managed to put Uribe in the dock. That is the engine of his political career.

He reached Congress in 2010, famously arriving with a bucket, broom, and mop, promising to clean up a legislature stained by parapolítica — the scandal of lawmakers who colluded with paramilitary groups. He has been there ever since, four terms, mostly on the Second Committee, which handles military promotions, security, and foreign relations. The crucial point about his experience, and I will come back to it, is that he has never governed anything — no city, department, ministry, or large budget. His arena has been Congress as a moral and judicial forum. He was also the principal intellectual architect of Petro’s Paz Total, “Total Peace”; he coined the term.

His running mate is Aida Quilcué, an indigenous Nasa leader and senator who is herself a victim of state violence — her husband was killed by the military as they returned from a minga. One more thing matters because it is human and real: Cepeda is in fragile health. He has beaten cancer twice — colon cancer in 2018, liver cancer treated in 2022 — and people who have worked with him describe a worn body and an iron will. He is intellectually serious, sober, and predictable, the opposite of Petro’s chaos. Whatever you make of his politics, he is no lightweight.

The case for Abelardo de la Espriella

Let me make the genuine case for de la Espriella, as I see it.

He promises to be tough on crime — on the organized armed groups and on ordinary street crime alike. After four years in which armed groups roughly doubled in size under Total Peace, many Colombians are hungry for exactly that, and I understand why. He is pro-business and pro-investment, foreign and domestic, and he has built his whole pitch on the idea that prosperity comes from the private sector rather than the state. He is pro-US and promises to repair the relationship with Washington that frayed under Petro; he is, in fact, a US citizen himself, which tells you which direction he faces.

On the economy, I think he would restore investor confidence and likely work to repair Colombia’s diminished credit rating, which matters enormously for what the country pays to borrow. He supports lower taxes, which is a good thing when paired with genuine fiscal prudence — that is the caveat, but the instinct is right.

The strongest item on his ticket, for me, is his running mate, José Manuel Restrepo. Restrepo served as both Minister of Commerce and Finance Minister in Iván Duque’s cabinet and did the job well, even when Duque did not. He has few critics and brings a level of intellectual seriousness and economic credibility that the top of the ticket does not project on its own. A credible technocrat one heartbeat from the presidency is a real asset.

He wants to shrink the bureaucracy. Colombia’s is not as bloated as some in Latin America, but it can be streamlined — and the bigger problem than handing out sinecures is mermelada, the practice of spreading money through useless government contracts to friends and supporters. If he genuinely goes after that, good. He is also plainly intelligent; a successful defense attorney knows jurisprudence and procedure cold.

Two of his ideas deserve particular credit. He says he wants to promote home ownership for people of modest means, and El País reports a plan for below-market thirty-year mortgages. If that is real and it works, it is a genuinely good idea. The Peruvian author Hernando de Soto, in The Mystery of Capital, explains how broad asset ownership by ordinary people is what formalizes an economy and drives real progress: when you own assets, you can extract value from them, pass them to your descendants, and build lasting wealth. And on health care, he promises to fix the EPS system with financial oversight to root out corruption, rather than blow it up. That is far better than moving to a single-payer government scheme, which I think would be disastrous. The state has not shown the organizational competence to run one. Consider that Petro placed Daniel Quintero, the indicted former mayor of Medellín, in a role overseeing the EPS — and Quintero is accused of looting the city’s coffers. A couple of insolvent EPS providers is a manageable problem; a national government that cannot pay providers and collapses the whole system is not. Patching beats nationalizing.

He supports performance evaluations for teachers, which is reasonable even if FECODE will oppose it, and he wants to expand internet connectivity into rural and underserved regions, which is critical in a country with such a wide gap between rural and urban, rich and poor. Connectivity means opportunity. That is a real list — a coherent pro-growth, pro-security program. Now the other side.

The case against Abelardo de la Espriella

There is a lot here. Start with the Bukele worship. De la Espriella is an open admirer of El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele. Bukele has unquestionably cut crime, but he also shows clear authoritarian tendencies and no sign of willingly leaving power. More to the point, Bukele is no friend to a free press, and de la Espriella is notoriously thin-skinned: he uses the courts to file SLAPPs — Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation — designed to force critics to burn money and time on their defense. Even meritless, such suits can bankrupt a person or consume so much of their time they cannot do their job. This is not hypothetical. La Silla Vacía documented dozens of civil suits and criminal complaints against journalists, several of whom admit to censoring themselves. That should worry anyone who cares about press freedom.

He may also turn out to be soft on crime — especially organized crime — which sounds backwards for the “iron fist” candidate until you look at his career. He built it defending mobsters, paracos, and the corrupt: the Nule family, Álex Saab. He is childhood friends with the paramilitary chief Salvatore Mancuso. And he has been linked to a paramilitary known as “Boliche,” Jorge Luís Hernández Villazón, on trial in the United States for narcotrafficking. De la Espriella denies any connection with Boliche and says he knows him only through his work as a defense attorney. Fine — but it is a fair question how tough he will really be on his friends and former clients. That is not a cheap shot; it is a reasonable thing to want answered.

I also do not see a plan for the poor. I have looked, and I find nothing in his platform that signals a comprehensive plan — or much compassion — for the underprivileged and those without access to opportunity in the remote areas: the Pacific coast, the rural zones, the Atlantic coast. Perhaps one exists and I have missed it, but if so, where is it?

He seems inconsistent. This is a man who craves attention — a recording artist, a clothing line, a rum called “Defensor” — who then suddenly finds Jesus and becomes the “God and family” candidate. Maybe it is sincere. Forgive me for being skeptical of a conversion that lines up so neatly with a presidential run.

On the peace process, he has pledged not to implement the 2016 accords that won former President Juan Manuel Santos the Nobel Peace Prize. To be fair, the last two administrations did a poor job implementing them too. But my concern is simple: the people who genuinely laid down their arms need protection. You do not want to teach the next generation that demobilizing gets you killed. He also wants to end the Jurisdicción Especial de Paz, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, arguing it is a political tool that does not deliver real justice. I do not know the JEP well enough to rule on that flatly, but I am skeptical of the claim; my sense is that it is doing some genuine good and should be reformed rather than scrapped.

Colombia 2026 1st round top two (Graphic: Sofi Imfeld for Finance Colombia)

Then there is the absence of a track record. He has never held any office, so there is nothing to go on. Does he become a statesman or a caudillo wannabe? We do not know, and that uncertainty is itself a cost. Finally, the persona. His public identity strikes me as a bit of a gomelo — Colombian slang for a stuck-up rich kid. People often cultivate a public character that has little to do with who they really are, so perhaps the private Abelardo is a prince. But he is asking voters to choose the public one, and the public one rubs me the wrong way.

The case for Iván Cepeda

Now the honest case for Cepeda. He will very likely put real attention on the marginalized and the forgotten parts of the country, and the map backs this up: in the first round he carried the entire Pacific coast, the forested borders with Ecuador, Peru, and Brazil, and most of the Atlantic provinces — the exception being Antioquia, whose population concentrates far to the south around Medellín. Much of that Atlantic coast, outside Barranquilla and the touristy parts of Cartagena, has suffered generations of corruption and chronic underinvestment. Someone paying attention to those places is not a bad thing.

He is consistent and predictable. He has a long career and a coherent, stable ideology. I may disagree with that ideology — you will hear about it in the cons — but no one can call the man unpredictable. You know what you are getting, and in politics that is worth something.

He would try to actually implement Santos’s 2016 peace accords. The pact has real flaws and lacked genuine commitment from the current and previous administrations, but it did demobilize thousands of fighters who are no longer in the bush kidnapping and bombing people. Pushing to finish that work honestly has value.

And to be fair, he is clearly more competent than the ally currently in office. He is more intelligent and more disciplined than Gustavo Petro. Consider how Petro has governed: unable to push through much of his agenda, running the Casa de Nariño like a reality show, cycling more than sixty ministers through nineteen ministries in under four years. How do you accomplish anything while swapping in a new minister roughly every three weeks? I do not think a Cepeda administration would bring the same chaos and palace intrigue. And he would command the largest bloc of support in Congress, so he would be more effective at moving his agenda; he knows how the machinery works. Credit where it is due — he does not stand up in cabinet meetings inventing his own physics. That is a low bar, but Petro keeps walking under it and Cepeda clears it.

Finally, he has a real, lifelong commitment to the victims of violence in Colombia. Whatever else you say about him, that commitment is genuine and it is the through-line of his entire life. That counts.

The case against Iván Cepeda

Iván Cepeda is a senator, former member of the Communist Youth, educated in Bulgaria during the Soviet era, and key player in the negotiation with armed guerilla groups. (photo: Colombian Senate)

And there are many cons. The first is the mirror I opened with: he has shady friends too. He was close to the Chavista senator Piedad Córdoba. Just as de la Espriella calls his contacts with Boliche purely professional, Cepeda says his ties to the FARC commander Raúl Reyes were purely those of a peace negotiator. But Cepeda went further. When the FARC commander Jesús Santrich was locked up and ready to be extradited to the United States on drug-trafficking charges, Cepeda worked fiercely to get him released from the Fiscalía‘s Bunker. Once out, Santrich fled into Venezuela and restarted the Segunda Marquetalia, a FARC dissident network. And here is the part that lands like a gut punch a year later: that same Segunda Marquetalia is the group Colombian prosecutors have now linked to the assassination of presidential candidate and senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, who was shot in Bogotá in June 2025 and died that August. I want to be careful and fair — that is an attribution by the Fiscalía, and serious analysts at Insight Crime have noted the public evidence is thin, so it should not be treated as settled fact. But the chain — Cepeda helps free Santrich, Santrich restarts the Segunda Marquetalia, the Segunda Marquetalia is tied to a magnicidio — is a heavy thing to carry into a presidential race.

Second, he is soft on the guerrillas, broadly. He has a proven record of leniency toward the FARC, the ELN, and armed groups generally, and he is an architect of Petro’s failed Total Peace. Under that nurturing approach those groups have flourished, and I think they would keep flourishing under a Cepeda administration. He seems to see them more as victims of state violence than as the kidnappers, narcotraffickers, extortionists, and terrorists that they are. La Silla Vacía’s own reporting — and they are not a right-wing outlet — concluded that Cepeda bears real political responsibility for the failure of Total Peace, having pushed a negotiation model that was too ambitious, legally ambiguous, and weak before armed groups. When the violence comes from the state, Cepeda sees structure and systemic responsibility; when it comes from the guerrillas, he tends to see context and a chance for peace. That blind spot defines him.

Former 2022 presidential candidate Rodolfo Hernandez (photo: candidate’s website)

Third is his health and his running mate, which is delicate but real. Cepeda has had cancer twice. The late Rodolfo Hernández, who lost to Petro in 2022, died in 2024 of cancer after also having had liver and colon cancer, so the risk is not hypothetical. If Cepeda did not finish his term, Aida Quilcué would take over, and her career — as an indigenous Nasa leader, minga organizer, and senator — has centered on those issues rather than monetary policy, foreign affairs, or national security, which makes her approach to them a genuine unknown. People also doubted Francia Márquez, and she turned out to be the articulate, level-headed one beside Petro’s wilder talk, so I will say nothing against Quilcué as a person. But a possible succession to a medically fragile president is an inarguable risk, and it would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

Fourth, I cannot imagine investor confidence improving under a Cepeda presidency. A data point worth chewing on: the peso is currently strong. Part of that is the dollar’s broad global weakness, but part of it, in my read, is the market reacting to the strong polling of Cepeda’s opponent. Markets vote too, and they are nervous about the left.

Fifth, the father — and I want to be fair here. You cannot reliably judge a son by his father; my own father was a politician, and as an adult I spent most of my life in the party opposite his, with a great relationship and very different philosophies. So I will not convict Iván Cepeda for his father’s beliefs. The difference is that Cepeda does seem broadly aligned with them. His father was secretary general of the Colombian Communist Party, Iván studied in Soviet Bulgaria, and though he says he grew disillusioned with the hypocrisy of Soviet communism, he still appears committed to a far-left ideology. If that is your cup of tea, count it a plus; I have never been fond of Marx or Engels.

Sixth is crop substitution, and this one deserves a direct conversation. On paper it sounds marvelous: rather than spray coca with herbicides that wreck the environment and people’s health, offer farmers a legal alternative and a path out. If it worked the way it is drawn up, I would back it one hundred percent. The problem is the gap between the brochure and the dirt road — and that gap is built on a premise that simply is not true on the ground: the premise that the campesino is a free actor who chooses to grow coca and could, if persuaded, choose to grow something else.

In much of rural Colombia, the small farmer does not get to volunteer. Where the FARC dissidents and the ELN hold territory, the armed group tells the farmer he will cultivate coca, do the manual labor of harvesting it, and sell the leaf or paste to the group at a price the group sets — under penalty of death. Refuse, and the farmer is driven off his land or simply killed. This is not a lifestyle preference; it is coercion at gunpoint. The reporting bears out the broader pattern. Finance Colombia’s coverage, drawn from InSight Crime, documents how the power vacuum left by the FARC’s 2016 demobilization was filled by the ELN, the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces, and FARC dissidents fighting for control of coca zones, and how the state’s failure to deliver on substitution let armed groups fill the vacuum and tighten their grip. The human cost is staggering: after families signed substitution agreements, the murder rate of supportive social leaders rose by 546 percent, according to a study cited by InSight Crime, and only about 5 percent of the program’s 2023 budget was actually executed. You cannot ask a farmer to switch crops when the entity controlling his life and his land is not the government but a guerrilla faction that has already told him what he will plant.

That is why this is not a matter of asking farmers nicely to grow coffee or cacao. It is not their choice. Security has to come first. Crop substitution can only work where the state — not the guerrillas — holds the territory and can guarantee a farmer’s safety when he says no to coca. The armed groups must be displaced before substitution has any chance, and any candidate who treats substitution as a soft alternative to security has the sequence backwards. That is the simple truth of it, and it is the heart of my concern with the Total Peace approach Cepeda helped design.

Seventh, he wants to expand the state’s role across the board, including continuing Petro’s effort to take over the health sector. Before the pandemic, Colombia had one of the best reputations in the world for health-care quality. Is it unequal? Yes — care in an isolated hamlet does not match Cali or Medellín, and the south of Bogotá does not match the north. Then let the government build clinics and hospitals where they are missing. There is no reason to take over the parts of the private system that work in order to do that, unless one objects on ideology to doctors and dentists existing as small businesspeople. That is ideology, not health policy.

Eighth, if Cepeda wins he may well protect Daniel Quintero, the former mayor of Medellín under indictment on more than forty counts of corruption. That kind of debt-collection worries me. And ninth, the selective conscience. Cepeda is a former member of the Communist Youth — a plus if you are a communist, unsettling if you are not. The FARC and ELN are also communist groups; one wonders whether that is the root of his apparent sympathy. He casts himself as a human rights defender yet stays conspicuously silent on the abuses of the Chavista regime in Venezuela. La Silla Vacía documented this in detail: roughly a decade of avoiding criticism of Maduro’s repression, fraudulent elections, and alliances with Colombian guerrillas. Cepeda notices human rights violations committed by people he dislikes while exempting bad actors he is closer to, provided they are communist or socialist. The record on that is fairly clear.

So where does that leave us?

Two men. One built his life on being seen — a brilliant, theatrical defense lawyer for the powerful and the accused, now promising an iron fist while surrounding himself with at least one genuinely serious technocrat in José Manuel Restrepo. The other built his life on a single tragedy — a disciplined, consistent, ideologically committed man of the left who has fought for victims for thirty years, and who carries a blind spot the size of a guerrilla encampment.

Here is the paradox I cannot get past: the “tough on crime” candidate has spent his career defending criminals, and the “human rights” candidate stays silent on half the human rights abuses in his own backyard. Each is, in some way, the very thing he claims to oppose. This is not a runoff between an angel and a devil. It is a runoff between two men who each ask voters to trust that their inconvenient friendships were strictly professional.

I am uneasy about both candidacies, for very different reasons, and I am doing what I said I would: laying it out and handing it to the reader. For deeper background, see Finance Colombia’s earlier survey of how the leading candidates draw divergent maps for foreign capital, security, and the rule of law, its reporting on what is behind Colombia’s increased violence, and its account of the final push of the Total Peace policy. The runoff is Sunday, June 21, and the winner is inaugurated August 7.

Migración Colombia, Colombia’s immigration agency, has executed the expulsion of two US citizens from Medellín following separate investigations into activities deemed a risk to public security and peaceful coexistence. The administrative measures targeted Steve Newland, a digital content creator known as “Chill Capo,” and Samuel McVey, a former teacher from New York. Both individuals were transported to the Aeropuerto Internacional José María Córdova in Rionegro and placed on a flight to Miami, Florida.

Definition of “Capo” according to Google.

The actions come amid a broader strategy by the Colombian government to address concerns regarding sex tourism and the presence of foreign nationals with outstanding legal issues in their home countries. According to Paola Salazar, the Regional Director of Migración Colombia, the agency has adopted a stricter posture to ensure that Colombia is not utilized as a refuge for individuals linked to fraudulent or illicit activities.

The Case of Steve “Chill Capo”Newland

Steve Newland, a 42-year-old US citizen born in Willingboro, New Jersey, had been residing in Medellín since 2022. Operating under the digital brand “Chill Capo,” Newland promoted luxury lifestyle experiences and nightlife events. However, an investigation by Migración Colombia determined that Newland used his digital platforms to promote encounters with alleged purposes of sexual exploitation.

“Lo están esperando y lo capturan, (they are waiting for them and they will capture them)” stated Federico Gutiérrez, the Mayor of Medellín, referring to the coordination with US authorities regarding the return of the individuals.

The agency reported that Newland’s content included advice on how to evade immigration controls at the airport, such as using false medical certificates or simulating injuries to bypass rigorous inspections. His publications also mentioned accommodations linked to historical criminal figures, specifically the penthouses de Pablo Escobar, and provided instructions on how to avoid being targeted with escopolamina during social outings. Following the investigation, authorities confirmed Newland was in an irregular migration status. He has been banned from reentering Colombia for a minimum of five years.

Newland has publicly denied the allegations via his social media channels. He asserted that his primary objective was to educate visitors on safety and help them avoid dangerous situations. Newland claimed that his events were legal, safe, and conducted in collaboration with established Colombian businesses in the Parque Lleras district. He further contended that his visa had been renewed multiple times since 2022, suggesting that any illegal activity would have prevented such renewals. Newland challenged authorities to present specific evidence or identify victims related to the claims of exploitation.

🔴 #Noticia | Influenciador estadounidense que promovía turismo con fines de explotación sexual en Medellín, fue deportado por Migración Colombia.
El extranjero no podrá ingresar al país en los próximos cinco años, luego de este tiempo tendrá que solicitar una visa. pic.twitter.com/9QhZKJ7C8X

— Migración Colombia (@MigracionCol) April 11, 2026

Samuel McVey: School Incidents and US Warrants

On LinkedIn, McVey claims to have a new private school in Llanogrande, Antioquia, that embraces “leaders of drug cartels and paramilitaries” among others.

In a separate incident, 46-year-old Samuel McVey, who was fired as a primary school teacher but styles himself as “Chief Executive Officer @ McVey International Group” on LinkedIn, was expelled following a series of disturbances at educational institutions in the Valle de Aburrá (Metro Medellín) and the city’s eastern Antioquia bedroom community of Rionegro. On April 8, 2026, McVey reportedly entered at least three schools in the wealthy Las Palmas sector of Medellín, where he allegedly initiated confrontations and made threats against staff and students. He subsequently traveled to Rionegro, where he attempted to gain entry to the Colegio Monteluna in Llanogrande by posing as an English language instructor.

When denied access, McVey reportedly directed threats toward students, prompting school officials to contact the Policía Nacional. He was apprehended by units from the Estación Llanogrande near a local strip mall. Manuel Villa Mejía, the Secretary of Security and Coexistence of Medellín, described McVey as a risk to the community and confirmed that the individual was in a state of high agitation upon his detention.

Investigation into McVey’s background revealed that he is a fugitive from New Rochelle, New York. In the United States, McVey faces charges of aggravated harassment in the second degree, a misdemeanor. The charges stem from an investigation by the New Rochelle Police Department involving threats made against Dr. Corey W. Reynolds, the Superintendent of the City School District of New Rochelle. McVey, a former Spanish teacher at Isaac E. Young Middle School, was terminated in early 2026. New Rochelle authorities had issued two bench warrants for his arrest after he failed to appear for court proceedings on March 26 and April 1, 2026.

Despite the outstanding warrants, the New Rochelle Police Department noted that they do not typically extradite individuals for misdemeanor offenses. Consequently, Colombian authorities processed his departure as an immediate expulsion based on his conduct within Colombia. McVey has been prohibited from entering Colombia for ten years.

Regional Enforcement Trends and Peak Travel Season Operations

The expulsions of Newland and McVey come after a larger enforcement effort during the 2026 Semana Santa (Easter Week) season. Migración Colombia reported that enhanced controls at airports and land borders resulted in the detection of numerous foreign nationals with irregular status or criminal backgrounds.

Specific cases identified by the agency during this period include:

• In Leticia, Amazonas, a Peruvian citizen was detained at a hotel; the individual was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice for alleged crimes against public health.
• In Ibagué, a Venezuelan citizen wanted by Peruvian authorities under an Interpol Red Notice for aggravated theft was arrested in a joint operation with the Policía Nacional.
• In Facatativá, another Venezuelan national was apprehended for an Interpol Red Notice involving charges of human trafficking for sexual exploitation and membership in criminal organizations.
• In Bogotá, two Dominican citizens were expelled after attempting to fraudulently obtain Colombian passports to travel to Europe.
• At the Aeropuerto Internacional José María Córdova, a man and a woman from the Dominican Republic were intercepted while attempting to travel to Peru and Argentina using fraudulent Colombian documentation.
  

  Inadmitted (photo courtesy Migración Colombia)

Statistical Overview of Inadmissibility in 2026

In the first quarter of 2026, Migración Colombia has denied entry to over 600 foreign nationals. The primary reasons for inadmissibility include state sovereignty and security risks (153 cases), lack of required visas (133 cases), and insufficient documentation (104 cases). Additionally, 89 individuals were rejected for providing false information during immigration interviews, while 34 had documented criminal records.

The agency also noted a specific focus on preventing the Explotación Sexual Comercial de Niños, Niñas y Adolescentes (ESCNNA). Through cooperation with international intelligence agencies and the Angel Watch platform, 471 individuals have been denied entry since 2016 for reasons associated with sexual offenses. At the Rionegro terminal alone, 31 inadmissibility cases have been recorded so far in 2026 related to potential sex tourism risks.

The Director General of Migración Colombia, Gloria Esperanza Arriero, emphasized that while the country remains open to international travel and investment, visitors are required to comply with the Constitución Política de Colombia and national laws. Under Decreto 2136 de 2021, the immigration authority maintains the power to deny entry or order the immediate return of any foreign citizen who poses a risk to national security or public order.

The main nationalities of those denied entry in early 2026 include citizens from the United States (76), the Dominican Republic (64), Ecuador (55), and Venezuela (52).

Montage of deportees Samuel McVey and Steven “Chill Capo” Newland

Video footage courtesy Migración Colombia

The PD 6500i metal detectors meet various international airport security standards, including TSA and ECAC certifications. These detectors are commonly used in airports, hotels, government buildings, and major sporting events globally.

Garrett secured the contract partly due to Aeronáutica Civil’s previous positive experiences with the PD 6500i’s reliability, detection capabilities, and ease of use. The widespread adoption of the PD 6500i in airports worldwide is attributed to its compliance with numerous security standards.

Leo Zelenkevich, International Security Sales Director at Garrett, commented: “Garrett offers effective detection solutions along with remote management tools that enhance airport security checkpoints.”

The PD 6500i, combined with the iC Module for remote management and monitoring, is designed for airport screening environments. Its extensive certifications provide users confidence in the security of Garrett checkpoints.

Airports receiving Garrett Detectors:

• Golfo De Morrosquillo Airport. Located in Santiago De Tolú (Department of Sucre)
• Santiago Pérez Quiroz Airport. Located in Arauca (Department of Arauca)
• La Florida Airport. Located in Tumaco (Department of Nariño)
• Guillermo León Valencia Airport. Located in Popayán (Department of Cauca)
• German Olano Airport. Located in Puerto Carreño (Department of Vichada)
• Juan José Rondón Airport. Located in Paipa (Department of Boyacá)
• Gerardo Tovar López Airport. Located in Buenaventura (Department of Valle Del Cauca)
• El Alcaraván Airport. Located in Yopal (Department of Casanare)
• Contador Airport. Located in Pitalito (Department of Huila)
• Benito Salas Vargas Airport. Located in Neiva (Department of Huila)
• Reyes Murillo Airport. Located in Nuquí (Department of Chocó)
• El Pindo Airport. Located in Montelíbano (Department of Córdoba)
• Mórela Airport. Located in Puerto Berrio (Department of Antioquia)
• Vanguardia Airport. Located in Villavicencio (Department of Meta)
• Antonio Nariño Airport. Located in Chachagüí Pasto (Department of Nariño)

According to organizers, Expodefensa 2023 will focus on new technologies, equipment, and solutions in security and defense while bringing together a wide range of institutional and economic participants, including various ministers of defense, ministers of security, chiefs of staff, military branch leaders, and heads of governmental departments.

Other topics to be addressed in speeches, lectures, and academic sessions will include cybersecurity, information and communication systems, environmental risk management, protection of the marine coastline, and prevention of natural disasters.

In all, Expodefensa 2023 will include more than 200 exhibitors from 28 countries, at least 82 official delegates, and a host of manufacturers, logistics operators, and service companies in search of contracts and alliances.

“Expodefensa 2023 not only focuses on security and defense, but also stands out for its positive impact on civil society,” said the organizers in an announcement. “The academic offering of the event will include 17 presentations with international panelists and national experts, addressing solutions in multiple domains (land, air, sea, space and cyberspace) for strategic security issues and defense policies.”

“This event,” they continued, “”aimed at the security, defense and citizen protection sector focuses on four main axes adapted to the demands of the global market: international reach, technology and innovation, business platform and planning. Expodefensa 2023 promises to be a significant milestone in the region’s security and defense landscape.”

(Photo credit: Expodefensa)

Colombia has voted for change in Petro. But, in terms of the fight against organized crime, what shape will this change take?

This article generously shared by Insight Crime. The original can be read here.

Deforestation appears unstoppable. The production of cocaine continues virtually unabated. Major criminal groups, such as the ELN and the ex-FARC Mafia, pose severe threats across Colombia while a newer generation of urban gangs threaten cities. And finally, what of the relationship with Venezuela, which Gustavo Petro has pledged to repair, despite the regime of President Nicolás Maduro having harbored and even aided guerrilla groups.

Here, InSight Crime analyzes five security challenges awaiting the new president-elect head-on once he enters the Palace of Nariño in August.

The Beating Heart of the Global Cocaine Trade

Despite a slight decline in total coca crops in 2019 and 2020, Colombia remains far and away the world’s largest cocaine producer.

According to figures from the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), while crops have decreased for four years in a row, crop yields and overall cocaine production are at an all-time high. What’s more, about half of all coca is being farmed in protected areas, such as environmental reserves, Indigenous reservations or Afro-Colombian communities. Furthermore, little to no progress has been made in changing the dynamics in traditional hotspots for coca crops, such as the southern department of Nariño, or Norte de Santander, along the border with Venezuela.

Eradication efforts have shown little long-term impact. According to the UNODC, half of all cleared areas quickly showed signs of replanting and 37 percent of such areas saw new coca crops planted within 500 meters. Additionally, the use of forced eradication remains controversial and the National Crop Substitution Plan, which was supposed to encourage coca farmers to voluntarily move away from the trade by supporting them in developing alternative crops, has stagnated. This has all generated deep mistrust of government policies in coca-growing areas.

Furthermore, the process of extracting cocaine hydrochloride is becoming more effective, with crystallizers able to produce more cocaine than ever. The potential production of cocaine increased from 6.7 kilograms per hectare in 2019 to 7.9 kilograms in 2020, according to the UNODC. This means that approximately 1,228 tons of cocaine can be produced in Colombia every year.

SEE ALSO: Colombia’s Cocaine Keeps On Reaching New Heights: UNODC Report

This naturally has had a major positive effect for organized crime groups. More cocaine means a more constant flow of weapons and money, which in turn means an ability to secure control and expand their territory. The presence of Mexican, Italian and Balkan cartels has also had a direct impact on the demand for more cocaine hydrochloride.

Petro cannot solve the problem alone. Relations with Venezuela will remain the most pressing international obstacle to solving drug trafficking, while shipments to Ecuador have become a huge driver of violence in that country. Cocaine connections to Brazil, Panama and the Caribbean will also require a multilateral approach.

Is the FARC Peace Deal Still Salvageable?

The peace agreement reached in 2016 between the government and the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) is in real trouble. Coca substitution plans have stalled, violence in certain parts of Colombia has worsened and former FARC fighters are regularly threatened and killed.

At a purely legislative level, the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies has estimated that 37 percent of the provisions of the peace agreement have seen only minimal progress. Access to land and viable economic projects for those who laid down their weapons remains difficult.

At the 2021 UN General Assembly, outgoing president Iván Duque highlighted progress made on the agreement during his tenure, although recognizing that criminal groups remained a major obstacle.

The figures do not show much progress. According to figures from the Institute for Development and Peace Studies (Indepaz), 21 former combatants and 86 social leaders and human rights defenders have been killed in Colombia this year alone. During the Duque government to date, at least 930 people belonging to these categories have been assassinated. Not all of these can be directly associated to organized crime. But a large portion of these slain activists were directly working on the implementation of the FARC peace deal, including crop substitution and land restitution.

According to Mateo Gómez, a researcher at Barómetro quoted by the newspaper El Espectador, caring for ex-combatants and those forcibly displaced by violence will be an urgent issue for Gustavo Petro’s incoming government.

The Expansion of Colombia’s Criminal Groups

Of Colombia’s roster of criminal groups, three present the largest problems.

The National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) is arguably in the best position to be a major thorn in the side of Gustavo Petro. While its major enemies have been decimated by criminal rivalries and government action, the ELN has consolidated its presence in Venezuela, taking over many of the spaces left behind by the FARC, and is particularly strong in the border area.

Figuring out how to deal with the ELN will be one of Petro’s foremost priorities. Since the collapse of peace talks in January 2019, after the ELN bombed a police training school, the group has expanded rapidly. While its leadership has expressed itself ready to return to the negotiating table, it showed its strength in February 2022, by paralyzing large parts of the country with a series of coordinated strikes. Any conciliation will be made more difficult by the fact the ELN appears to have at least the tacit approval of Venezuela’s President Maduro to continue its criminal activities in exchange for a cut of the profits.

The dissident FARC, known as the ex-FARC Mafia, are in a precarious state. They remain powerful but fractured and leaderless after a series of targeted strikes has killed many of their commanders in the last 18 months.

Both the major factions of FARC rebels have suffered heavy losses, with the Second Marquetalia in particular now severely weakened. Its commander, Luciano Marín, alias “Iván Márquez,” has not been heard of for many months and could either be in hiding or trying to rebuild his group.

But the ex-FARC Mafia remain strong, especially in the south and the Pacific, commanded by Néstor Gregorio Vera, alias “Iván Mordisco.” However, a series of new leaders have emerged, with less loyalty to the FARC’s political ideologies and more focus on criminal income.

And the Urabeños, also known as the Gulf Clan (Clan del Golfo) or the  the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), have been battered but still have potential to cause nationwide problems.

After their leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias “Otoniel,” was extradited to the United States in May 2022, the group’s cohesion has been in doubt. While the Urabeños have always allowed franchise gangs to operate with some degree of autonomy, recent actions by said franchises have not seemed aligned. This risks forcing Petro to deal with highly active, smaller gangs, who will fight tooth and nail to defend their small part of an overall criminal economy, such as a drug trafficking route.

A similar scenario is already taking place in cities where smaller gangs are fighting for control of microtrafficking and international routes. In the north, the Pachenca have been terrorizing Santa Marta and the Costeños have been fighting for control of drug trafficking in Barranquilla. The Mexicanos and the Local have been staking claims to parts of the Colombian Pacific, the Cordillera has tried to extend its dominance from the southern state of Nariño and La Oficina as always has had a part to play in Medellín.

The Border with Venezuela

For Gustavo Petro, Venezuela may seem like a multi-headed hydra. The ELN and ex-FARC Mafia have grown rapidly in the country. Homegrown Venezuelan gangs are making their mark on Colombian soil. The government of President Maduro has revealed itself to be, if not a facilitator, at least a regulator of the cocaine trade. Human smuggling, contraband and environmental crimes are also rife between the two countries. And there is little to no communication set up between Caracas and Bogotá.

In Norte de Santander, on the Colombian side of the border, the ELN has made itself the dominant criminal actor in the coca-growing enclave of Catatumbo, while continuing its expansion into the interior of Venezuela. The Urabeños are actively trying to establish control of Cúcuta, arguably the most vital criminal crossroads along the border. They also control remote trails between Puerto Santander and San Antonio del Táchira, along which migrants are extorted. And the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, is clinging on to control of its own cross-border trails, despite facing a war with the ELN.

Further south, outbreaks of violence in Apure and Arauca continue to affect the civilian population. In 2021, during a prolonged fight between the Venezuelan government and the dissident FARC 10^th Front, an estimated 6,000 people were displaced and fled into Colombia. Continuing violence in the area, now involving the ELN, has seen this figure continue to increase, placing a humanitarian crisis into Petro’s hands.

Migration, in general, will be a vital issue for Petro to deal with. Around 2 million Venezuelans have fled to Colombia, many of whom live in economically precarious situations and have been preyed on by criminal groups for recruitment, extortion and more.

The Advance of Environmental Plunder

Successive Colombian governments have stalled in their duties as custodians of the Amazon. Since 2017, 220,000 hectares of forest cover have been lost.

Petro will have to learn from this recent political history. Government initiatives to curb deforestation have been tried. None have lasted for long.

And while specific areas have shown reductions in deforestation, the problem has worsened elsewhere. In 2018, although the total number of hectares deforested fell to 197,159 ha, rates increased drastically in the departments of Meta and Putumayo.

Same story in 2019 when, despite another overall drop, the northern departments of Chocó and Norte de Santander saw deforestation increase. This was heavily linked to the spread of other criminal economies, such as illegal mining and coca cultivation.

According to Rodrigo Botero, director of the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development, this will be one of Petro’s main environmental challenges. Instead of a national approach, Botero suggested that the new government should measure deforestation rates in terms of the forest cover remaining in highly vulnerable areas.

Even in 2022, deforestation is concentrated in similar places. National parks and other protected areas in Meta, Caquetá and Guaviare account for the bulk of deforestation, according to Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies (Instituto de Hidrología, Meteorología y Estudios Ambientales – IDEAM).

The new government will also have to tackle both the legal and illegal drivers of such deforestation. As extensively explored by InSight Crime, the likes of the ELN and ex-FARC Mafia encourage the burning of forests and building of illegal roads through the jungle to further drug trafficking and illegal mining.

However, cattle ranching and palm cultivation remain by far the largest causes of deforestation in Colombia. While legal, these are fed by the illegal appropriate of land, a crime that has received little visibility to date and benefits certain political and business elites.

This practice sees large parcels illegally occupied and the communities living there forcibly displaced. The forest is then cut down and turned into land for pasture. Extortion of nearby communities and money laundering through the forestry trade are common.

A recently created Law for Environmental Crimes, passed in 2021, marks such land appropriation as a crime. But the new president will have to actively confront this criminal economy often hidden in plain sight.

This article by Juan Diego Posada, Juan Diego Cárdenas, and Lara Loaiza has beengenerously shared by Insight Crime under a creative commons license. The original can be read here.

Ivan Duque is approaching his last year in office, so the meeting could be interpreted as an attempt to establish continuity going into the next administration after 2022 elections. In the statement released after talks, the US admitted that the bilateral counternarcotics strategy must become broader to address the lack of security in rural areas, protect the environment, and provide development. Forced displacement of rural population and violent crime against rural and indigenous communities continues, often by groups involved in narcotics production and trafficking. Ongoing protests in Colombia are among several other issues, against the Duque administrations failure to adequately respond.

Relationships between the Duque and Joe Biden Administrations could be better; several congressional members in Duque’s Centro Democratico political party openly campaigned against Joe Biden and for Donald Trump, even as Trump threatened to yank Colombia’s certification as a cooperating partner in antinarcotics efforts.

Both governments, along with other international actors must share blame for failures in narcotics eradication in Colombia. Existing policies have failed, though much of that failure can be attributed to a lack of execution, insufficient political will, and even corruption. The US government issued the following statement after talks with Colombian counterparts concluded.

Within the framework of the Counternarcotics Working Group, the U.S. and Colombian delegations discussed avenues to further strengthen the bilateral relationship, renewed their commitments to counternarcotics cooperation, highlighted the close collaboration and progress achieved during the Administration of President Iván Duque, and agreed to a broad framework for a new bilateral counternarcotics strategy. The delegations committed to finalize and release more details of the new strategy in the coming months.

The discussions focused on the need for a holistic approach to strengthening our counternarcotics strategy along three pillars: integrated supply reduction, comprehensive rural security and development, and environmental protection. This comprehensive approach will include close coordination of actions to promote greater stability in rural areas, establish an effective and sustainable national government presence, accelerate comprehensive rural development, guarantee the protection of human rights, and strengthen rule of law. The two sides agreed that the new strategy should be first implemented in three prioritized municipalities: Tumaco, Cáceres, and Sardinata.

In addition to programs that expand the presence and the services of the state, the discussions focused on improving citizen security, interrupting drug trafficking supply chains, sustaining coca eradication, and interdicting chemical precursors and cocaine. To reduce money laundering and strengthen asset forfeiture, the two sides also agreed to focus on reducing illicit cash transactions, prioritize arrests, prosecutions, and extraditions of key traffickers and their enablers, and strengthen the judicial system.

Both governments underscored the importance of Colombia’s integrated security and rural development program, as well as the reduction of illicit crops, which combines not only supply reduction, but also the creation of licit opportunities and strengthening of roads and productive infrastructure to contribute to the rural development with an emphasis in the Territorial Development Plans areas (PDETs). Both sides also expressed support for the “Future Zones,” a development and security approach that contains a long-term vision for territorial transformation, a culture of lawfulness, licit economies and advancing rural Colombia’s transition to peace.

The delegations agreed to strengthen efforts to protect the environment from exploitation by criminal groups, reducing drug use and its negative consequences, and improving technical capabilities for detecting coca cultivation and assessing cocaine production. The delegations also discussed plans to establish additional tools and metrics by which they can measure the success of interconnected counternarcotics, security, and development interventions.

The U.S. and Colombian representatives discussed the new Colombian National Police transformation and innovation plan, and agreed the plan’s focus on accountability, transparency, and human rights would strengthen police institutional capacity to counter narcotrafficking and organized crime.

The meeting also advanced preparations for the next High-Level Dialogue between the United States and Colombia, which is the main forum to discuss all aspects of the bilateral partnership. This High-Level Dialogue facilitates coordination on wide-ranging issues, such as economic development, security, reducing drug trafficking, educational exchanges, environmental protection, human rights, and health, among other areas of shared interest.

Both sides reaffirmed the strong counternarcotics partnership, which is critical to disrupting the cocaine supply chain. As the ongoing discussions demonstrate, Colombia and the United States recognize that complex problems, such as drug trafficking, are a shared responsibility that require long-term solutions and a comprehensive, sustained political response.

Above photo: US Embassy Bogotá

In another interview, Sengar discusses the company’s strategy, recent big wins, including a new global client, and product innovations focused on enterprise security. In this interview, Sengar, a global citizen, describes what it’s like for him and his family to move to Colombia and adapt to life in Bogotá, both as a corporate leader and as a family.

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