The reasons for the growing presence of Mexican drug traffickers in Colombia

The new dynamics of drug trafficking have increased the presence of Mexican cartel members in Colombia. It is based on the distrust that drugs will reach its destination and the concern that its partners lose interest in the North American market.

The last case reported in the country was the capture of emissary Brian Olguín Berdugo (“Pitt”), arrested last week in Cali, for extradition purposes. According to the National Police, he was a delegate of the Sinaloa cartel, whose mission was to manage the purchase of cocaine from FARC dissidents in southern Colombia.

“Pitt” joins the list of representatives arrested in the last five years. Among them are Irineo Sánchez (“the Mexican”) and Horacio Zúñiga, links to the “los Zetas” cartel, captured in 2017 in the city of Medellin. Another was Margarito Galeano Gómez, from the Oaxaca cartel, arrested in Villavicencio in February of this year.

According to the Drug Control Administration (DEA) and Colombian authorities, these characters had been traveling to Colombia for approximately three to four years. During this time they had created some roots as brides, renting offices and buying apartments.

It should be noted that the transnational cocaine business in Colombia has gone through four generations. The first was from the large cartels in Medellín, Cali and Norte del Valle, which exhibited a monopoly of the entire drug trafficking chain: cultivation, production, transport, export and distribution in the US market (1980-1997).

The second was named for the paramilitary self-defence groups and the FARC, which controlled crops and production, partnered with other groups for export and did not distribute on the international market (1997-2009). The third generation included the heir factions of the aforementioned cartels and terrorist organizations, such as the “Gulf Clan”, “los Rastrojos”, “los Paisas”, “los Machos”, “los Pachenca”, “los Pelusos”, among others, in addition to a greater participation of the ELN (2010-2017).

In the fourth, groups emerged that remained in the shade, of a business nature and without private armies, more discreet than the others, but with the contacts to get the goods out of Colombia (2018-present). For the third and fourth generation, monopolies were lost and no group is in control of the drug trafficking chain anymore, but some processes: some cultivate, others manufacture, there are those who transport and those who export.

This phenomenon is described by the Police as a set of “subsystems”, in which sometimes the producer does not even know the grower.

It is for this reason that there are no longer any partners who have the management of the entire chain, Mexicans had to increase vigilance, to ensure that quality standards are met.

Through an article published by Reuters, he revealed that Mexican drug cartels would be sending high-powered weapons to Colombia, with the aim of buying shipments of cocaine.

According to police sources, weapons such as machine guns, assault rifles and semi-automatic pistols are allegedly found arriving in the country.

The Mexican cartels involved in the exchange would be those of Sinaloa, Zeta and Jalisco Nueva Generación, who will have emissaries in Colombia.

According to the information gathered in the article, it was found that most of the weapons confiscated in the last two years, that is, in 2020 and 2021, would be manufactured abroad and imported clandestinely.

It has rightly been said that Mexican drug and drug trafficking groups would have access to weapons purchased in the United States.

In this way, the cartels would be paying for cocaine shipments from Colombia with such weapons to, supposedly, avoid moving cash between countries, according to Reuters.

The testimonies of the authorities collected in the article agree that the battle for drug trafficking in Colombia is between dissidents from the FARC, the ELN and groups such as the “Gulf Clan”.

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