image source, Nadege Mazars/The Washington Post via Getty Images
New chapter in the United States’ campaign against drug trafficking and organized crime in Latin America.
The Gaitanista Army of Colombia (EGC), better known as Clan del Golfo, has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department.
“It is a violent and powerful organization with thousands of members. Its main source of income is the cocaine trade, which it uses to finance its violent activities,” said a statement from the office headed by Marco Rubio.
The EGC, which emerged from remnants of paramilitarism in the 1990s and is said to have political motives, is considered the most powerful criminal group in Colombia.
It is the fourth Colombian armed group that the United States has added to its list of foreign terrorist organizations. It joins the National Liberation Army (ELN), the FARC-EP and the Second Marquetalia, FARC dissidents who were demobilized after the 2016 peace agreement.
Washington’s decision comes at a time of high tensions in Latin America.
Since September, the U.S. military has attacked dozens of suspected drug ships in the South American Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 95 people.
United States President Donald Trump has reiterated that the campaign against drug trafficking will soon include ground operations in Venezuela.
Trump accuses his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolás Maduro of leading a criminal organization called the Cartel of the Suns, which Maduro denies.
The American also did not rule out the possibility of the attacks extending to Colombian territory, where most of the world’s cocaine is produced, sparking strong criticism from President Gustavo Petro, whom the US recently sanctioned over alleged ties to the drug trade.
For its part, the Gulf clan is negotiating with the Petro government as part of the “total peace” strategy.
The US designation of the group as a terrorist organization appears to call this entire context into question.
What is it and how did the Clan del Golfo come about?
The vast Urabá region, which borders Panama and sits on a gulf with access to the Caribbean, was dominated by the guerrillas of the People’s Liberation Army (EPL) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in the 1990s.
Then the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), the paramilitary army that confronted the insurgency, invaded.
The EPL and the AUC marked the origins of the Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or Clan del Golfo, as former members of both sides, theoretically opposed and demobilized, formed a new group that, under the gaze of analysts and the state, took on a criminal rather than political character.
The AGC, now called the EGC, grew in power and territorial control.
A study by the Pares Foundation in Colombia estimates that the group is present in 302 of the country’s approximately 1,100 communities.
Experts say this is the key to why illicit income such as extortion, drug trafficking, migration and illegal mining dominate today.
image source, DANILO GOMEZ/AFP via Getty Images
Víctor Barrera, researcher at the Popular Research and Education Center (CINEP) in Bogotá, pointed out that the group “has a great capacity for mobility in the territory because it works by subcontracting specific services depending on the situation.”
This system, similar to that of franchises and with paid members, makes it difficult to know the scope and makes it easier for executives who are captured or fired to quickly find replacements.
“Today it is estimated that the EGC has about 9,000 members, according to official figures, although a new count is being carried out that will certainly increase the number,” Gerson Arias, associate researcher at the Ideas for Peace Foundation (FIP), tells BBC Mundo.
Arias points out that a third of the group functions as an army, while the rest consists of support networks, “militias and intelligence networks,” referred to within the organization as “urban, rural or military points.”
The clan’s tentacles have also been discovered in countries such as Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Spain and Honduras, where some of its members have been captured.
Who runs the organization?
For 15 years, since the early 2000s, the organization was led by brothers Dairo Antonio (Otoniel) and Juan de Dios Úsuga.
The group was also previously called Clan Úsuga.
Otoniel became supreme leader when his brother died at the hands of national police in an attack on a New Year’s Eve “drug party” on January 1, 2012.
Otoniel was Colombia’s most wanted criminal until his arrest and extradition to the United States in 2021. Today he is serving 45 years of his sentence in a US prison.
image source, Getty Images
After his fall, the names of his successors quickly appeared in the Colombian media.
One of them, Wílmer Giraldo, alias Siopas, was allegedly murdered by members of his own organization in 2023.
Another, Jesús Ávila, known as “Chiquito Malo,” commands the EGC and is one of the South American country’s most wanted men.
Recent growth
Pares analysts point out that the EGC’s operating model, which is flexible and based on agreements with local legal and illegal structures, allows them to grow without the need for open confrontations.
In recent years, the so-called “Urabeños” have expanded their presence in other areas such as Bajo Cauca, Córdoba, northern Chocó and part of Magdalena Medio.
“This growth was based on the ability to absorb local gangs, put pressure on local authorities and occupy spaces where public authority was unable to maintain a sufficient and sustained presence,” a Pares report said.
In addition, the group was characterized by its economic flexibility and diversification.
They offered goods and services during the pandemic closures in 2020 and 2021, and when the wave of migration through the Darién exploded, they allied with local communities to make big profits from the phenomenon.
Like other armed groups in Colombia, the EGC successfully exploited the space vacated by the FARC’s demobilization.
Pares points out that the Gaitanistas grew more slowly between 2022 and 2025, although reports of their expansion into mining areas in the south of Bolívar department suggest that they are seeking to further increase their territorial presence.
Negotiations with the Petro government
image source, Mahmoud HAMS/AFP via Getty Images
When Petro came to government in August 2022, he promised to negotiate with various armed groups to achieve complete peace.
His initiative to also speak with the EGC was met with criticism in the country, as experts and political opponents questioned how an organization classified as criminal by the Colombian state could do without the weapons and millions in revenue left behind by its territorial control.
The EGC sees itself as a political group and demands similar treatment to that of guerrillas and paramilitaries in peace negotiations.
Recently, at a meeting in Doha, Qatar, representatives of the EGC and the Colombian government signed an agreement to gradually work towards possible disarmament and pacification of the territories.
Time is running against Petro, whose term ends in August this year.
The actions of the USA, which apparently does not give up in its offensive against drug trafficking in Latin America, are increasing the uncertainty in the peace negotiations in Colombia, which are not producing the expected results.
And at the same time they are stoking fears that attacks could occur on Colombian territory, as Trump has warned.
The State Department said in its announcement: “The United States will continue to use all available means to protect our nation and stop campaigns of violence and terror by international cartels and transnational criminal organizations.”
Petro would view any threat to Colombian sovereignty as a “declaration of war,” as he has put it.
Subscribe here Subscribe to our new newsletter to receive a selection of our best content of the week every Friday.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download and activate the latest version.
About The Author
