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How commandos are taking down the cocaine trade in Colombia
Business Insider
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9/14/2024
Colombian special forces deal with the country’s most dangerous threats, like the illegal cocaine trade. We followed how top soldiers train for some of the deadliest secret missions.
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Transcript
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00:00
These men are preparing to take on some of the most dangerous drug gangs in the world.
00:08
They are part of Colombia's Special Forces, a military unit that selects the country's
00:14
best fighters for top-secret missions, like saving hostages kidnapped by cartels and rebel
00:22
groups.
00:23
Colombia produces 70% of the world's cocaine, and the fight to control it fueled a brutal
00:46
civil war that killed nearly half a million people.
00:50
The men we interviewed for this story agreed to speak with us on camera, but asked us not
00:56
to use their real names.
01:00
We traveled to the Colombian jungle to see how world-class soldiers trained to take on
01:07
some of the most sophisticated criminal groups in the world.
01:20
The Tolemaida military base sits at the heart of Colombia, and houses the country's best
01:26
fighters.
01:29
Like Luis, who enrolled in the army nearly two decades ago.
01:46
He has since served in units all over the country.
01:55
All Special Forces soldiers have to spend at least 42 days here every year.
02:02
Luis started with roughly 120 of Colombia's top recruits.
02:07
Most of them have since dropped out.
02:28
Today, these remaining 17 head out to a nearby training field just after sunrise.
02:41
They'll practice one of the hardest moves, ambushing enemies from the air.
02:47
The soldiers strap on about 70 pounds of gear, including an M16 rifle.
02:54
They carry everything from bullets to anti-venom, in case they end up in the jungle and get
03:00
bit by poisonous snakes.
03:05
This structure is designed to simulate jumping out of a helicopter, or rappelling off a building.
03:18
They're climbing about 50 feet.
03:22
This is called lanceros training.
03:25
Fighters who complete it call themselves sky soldiers.
03:34
This technique is the Colombian army's main method of infiltration.
03:40
Several fighters can use one of these thick ropes at the same time, which helps them land
03:45
in tight spaces in the jungle within seconds to carry out high-stakes missions, like rescuing
03:52
hostages.
03:55
Seventy-one people were kidnapped in the first three months of 2023, according to the Colombian
04:01
defense ministry.
04:03
That's more than double the abductions over the same period in 2022.
04:09
Reports suggest that's because revenue from coca crops here is dropping.
04:14
Production is outpacing demand.
04:17
So drug traffickers are looking for an alternative source of income, demanding ransom in exchange
04:24
for hostages.
04:34
If they land on a building in a city, they have to descend using another technique.
04:40
But walking in this position is so hard on their joints that Luis says he almost gave
04:46
up the first few times he tried.
04:57
Once they hit the ground, they have to get in formation right away so they don't leave
05:01
themselves vulnerable.
05:05
But as much as they plan, it's hard to know for sure what they're going into.
05:11
The Tolemaida training base is surrounded by areas where the government has tracked
05:16
a lot of rebel and cartel activity.
05:20
Colombia has at least 23 drug gangs and four big rebel groups.
05:26
Locals refer to cartels as the Invisibles.
05:30
They say fighting them is like fighting ghosts, because their operations are discreet and
05:37
widespread.
05:38
The largest cartel, Clan del Golfo, controls the most important drug trafficking routes
05:44
into the U.S.
05:47
Its members wear the letters AGC, which stands for the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of
05:53
Colombia.
05:55
They have their own bylaws and act as police in some rural areas, where they control entire
06:02
towns.
06:03
Today, official membership in gangs, rebel groups, and cartels is higher than ever.
06:12
Cartels work around the clock tipping them off.
06:16
And they are notorious for killing anyone who opposes them.
06:21
At least 134 community members were reportedly assassinated in the first eight months of
06:28
2023 alone.
06:32
So soldiers say keeping their missions top secret is key to staying alive.
06:39
This battalion wouldn't disclose specifics about what it's preparing for.
06:56
They go on 25 to 40 missions a year.
07:02
Some can last three weeks.
07:12
They have to learn to launch weapons, like these 40mm grenades, to blow up rooms.
07:31
The red and blue dots indicate danger and safety zones, which help the soldiers determine
07:38
how they'll navigate the course.
08:01
They have to throw the grenade at least 65 feet to avoid getting hit by the blast.
08:22
But they're also running with these explosives, and the injuries can be permanent.
08:30
Colombia has been waging war on drugs since the 1970s, when small-scale cocaine producers
08:37
began smuggling suitcases lined with the white powder into the US.
08:43
By the mid-1980s, about 70 tons of cocaine were making their way into the US every year.
08:50
And as demand for it boomed there, it became clear that this would be a lucrative industry
08:56
here in Colombia, too.
08:59
One that now employs at least 400,000 people across the country, and rakes in roughly $18
09:07
billion annually.
09:11
Over the years, narco-empires grew so rich and so big, they could afford to build their
09:17
own submarines, and even hire their own pilots.
09:22
Colombian police were also tasked with taking them down.
09:27
Oscar Naranjo, the former vice president of Colombia, remembers those days.
09:41
As a police officer, he played a big part in taking down the notorious Medellín Cartel
09:47
in 1993, run by Pablo Escobar.
09:53
And the Cali Cartel, which ruled the cocaine trade in the 1990s.
10:09
But even after Escobar's arrest, and the fall of Colombia's biggest cartels, drug
10:16
trafficking continued.
10:18
It was mostly led by the FARC, a communist rebel group that at one point controlled over
10:24
half of the country's coca crops.
10:27
Mainly people from rural areas had joined the group in the 1960s to fight against the
10:33
growing wealth gap between Colombia's rich and poor.
10:38
That dispute turned into a civil war that lasted more than 50 years.
10:43
Finally, in 2016, the group struck a peace deal with the state and disbanded.
10:49
Control over coca production splintered.
10:53
Smaller groups took over, making it harder to hold any one party accountable.
10:59
And even though the government has since demolished neighborhoods like El Bronx in Bogota, where
11:04
drug gangs thrived, Naranjo says the problem runs deep.
11:13
But even government officials like him have been accused of taking bribes from drug smugglers.
11:31
Naranjo has repeatedly denied the allegations against him.
11:35
And despite the claims, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration named him an honorary special
11:41
agent in 2010.
11:43
The United States is Colombia's main funder in its war on drugs.
11:48
And since 1999, it's spent over $10 billion on counter-narcotics operations here.
11:56
That's because most of this cocaine ends up in the United States, where in 2022, nearly
12:04
30,000 people died of cocaine-related overdoses.
12:09
Colombia has also seen its share of death from cartel violence.
12:13
The war on drugs and the ongoing civil conflict here killed over 450,000 people between 1985
12:21
and 2018, and forced nearly 8 million more out of their homes.
12:28
And soldiers say the rebels and narco-criminals involved in the war won't spare anyone that
12:34
gets in their way.
12:39
Eduardo is one of the most experienced fighters here.
13:02
He will have to leave this unit soon, because he's getting close to the retirement age
13:06
of 38.
13:09
Everyone who goes on these kinds of missions has to be in top fighting shape.
13:17
Eduardo trains beside the other soldiers, but he also helps run the second half of today's
13:23
exercise.
13:24
They're training in the jungle.
13:37
They've set up makeshift targets all over to help them practice different scenarios.
13:44
Most of their missions play out in terrain similar to this.
13:49
They're walking miles in scorching heat.
13:52
Cars are loud and can't reach many of the places they need to go.
14:01
Once soldiers have a target in sight, they usually aim at the chest to injure but not
14:06
kill them.
14:14
That way, they can target even more offenders who come to their help.
14:28
The soldiers make these sounds together to practice shooting in sync.
14:43
But the key is to move in silence to go undetected.
14:48
So they have to anticipate each other's moves.
14:53
They file like this, because one of them always has to have the other's backs.
15:00
They're striking moving targets, so they have to be ready to get in formation right away.
15:11
But things may not always go as planned.
15:16
So they have safe words.
15:41
And if one of them is gunned down, they'll never leave them behind.
15:46
There are many relatives who ask me, how many people have you shot?
15:56
I say, why do you always ask that?
15:58
Why don't you ask me how many people I've helped?
16:02
There are many groups outside the law.
16:04
At the moment, the conflict is more tedious.
16:12
Since the 1980s, cocaine producers have set up operations in remote places across Colombia
16:18
to avoid getting caught.
16:21
At secret hideouts like these, they turn coca leaves into paste and into powder.
16:29
The government has tried to systematically wipe out cocaine production by ripping out
16:34
the crops.
16:36
Local police units also track down and destroy illegal refineries that produce gasoline,
16:43
an important ingredient in cocaine.
16:52
But they pop up faster than they can be taken out, because they're so rustic and easy to
16:58
build.
16:59
And so fights in remote areas like these are inevitable.
17:05
Patches on soldiers' uniforms can give away their family names and allow someone
17:11
to retaliate.
17:13
Still, Eduardo carries some mementos.
17:23
Even though these soldiers say they're trying to help their country, they aren't always
17:29
considered the good guys here.
17:35
More than 200,000 families across Colombia depend on coca farming to keep their own families
17:41
alive.
17:43
Like Francisco, who has been growing it for more than 23 years.
17:56
He lives in Nariño, a remote part of the country where there are hardly any other well-paying
18:02
jobs.
18:20
The government introduced a crop substitution program in 2016.
18:25
And a UN report found that about 100,000 families signed up.
18:30
But that most of them didn't receive the full promised payments.
18:56
The agency in charge of the program told Business Insider that it's working with the
19:01
families to find a compromise.
19:04
But it didn't share specifics.
19:07
Unlike other crops, like coffee and plantains, coca can be harvested up to six times a year.
19:15
The plant now covers five times as much land as it did in the days of Pablo Escobar.
19:22
The country's leftist president, Gustavo Pedro, wants to legalize cocaine.
19:27
But the U.S. does not support that move.
19:45
Back at the base, the men are done training for the day.
19:58
But Eduardo tries to call his wife every day when he's away.
20:05
Even though he's fighting for Colombia, he doesn't want to live here forever.
20:22
Luis plans to keep fighting for a while.
20:46
But he says it would be unrealistic to dream of peace and of a Colombia without cartels
20:53
or cocaine.
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