Mexican cartels are luring former Colombian soldiers to fight

Mexico City – Dangerous newly rented weapons came to the battlefield of Mexico’s cartel wars: Colombian mercenaries.

The old fighters in Colombia’s long -standing internal conflicts are gradually drawn to Mexico by criminal groups to educate Hitmen, build bombs and fight bloody lawn wars.

Eleven Colombia was arrested in Michoacán last week in connection with a roadside bomb attack that killed eight members of the Mexican national guards. The Colombian Foreign Ministry said that all men were detained were once soldiers.

Colombia President Gustavo Petro X said that a cartel known as Los Reyes hired “Colombian mercenaries to hire to confront Mexico state.”

This phenomenon emphasizes the increasing intensity of Mexico’s cartel war, as well as the expanding role of Colombian warriors in global conflicts. The Colombians fought in Sudan, Yemen and Ukraine through private companies and even through Tiktok.

Colombian officials said that more than 300 Colombian fighters were defending Ukraine from Russian attacks.

Haiti officials claim that Haiti President Jovel Moise had participated in the 2021 assassination of 26 Colombian mercenaries. Colombians also played a role in the murder of Ecuador presidential candidate Fernando Vilavicencio.

Most of the fighters are inadequate or former military personnel who are not educated for any activity other than war.

“You have a pool of human resources that have been misused and not used in their full potentials, El Elizabeth Dickinson, the Colombian analyst of the International Crisis Group, a non -profit -based thinking tank. “They are swept by both states, defense companies and criminal groups with these attractive offers.”

Soldiers are in demand because they have a real life experience struggling with Narcos and guerrillas in their own countries. The Colombian army is the largest and most professional in Latin America, which received billions of dollars from the United States.

Compared to American or European security contractors, Colombian fighters are cheap, Dickinson said: “They are ideal recruitment.”

A commander for Jalisco new generation Cartel is sitting in Monster, a temporary armored vehicle used to fight against rival crime groups in Michoacán state.

(For Juan Jose Estrada Serafin / The Times)

Many Colombian cartels say they have been deceived.

46 -year -old Freddy, who did not give his surname because of a fear of retaliation from a cartel, left the Colombian army at the age of 32, who fought left -wing guerrillas after more than a decade. He earned about $ 300 per month for a private security company in Colombia. When he heard a so -called $ 3,000 per month with the French foreign legion, he registered, registered, assisting the tasks of protection of peace by preserving future protection tasks or protecting peace.

He thought he would take a quick break in Mexico City when his contacts flying him there last year. But when he came, he and Nine other Nine Colombia traveled were deported to an isolated camps in Jalisco province. His phones and passports were confiscated and now they were told to be part of a cartel.

Freddy said he had to participate in torture and murders. He said that if he does not have to, he would be killed: “This is the life of your life or the person in front of you.”

According to the video footage reviewed by The Times, two other colombian warriors, who recently active in Mexico, announced that they were withdrawn with the promise of good paid jobs. At the arrival, Cartel claimed that they were feroging, giving weapons, and saying to fight, and warned that their families would be damaged if they left.

“They cheated on me,” he said as a security guard, a monthly $ 3,000 were committed, but instead Jalisco was made for a new generation of Cartel to work about $ 300 per month.

Many of them said they gave arms training for approximately 100 cartel soldiers under 18 years of age and contrary to their wishes. “We were practically slaves,” he said. “They say to you: ‘Go fight and die if he dies.’ They don’t care about human life.

The other man, a former Colombian police officer, said that he worked as a doctor from Venezuela and Guatemala with other international mercenaries. A few Colombian died on the battlefield.

Mexican officials know that cartels have been employing foreign warriors for years.

A drone and improvised bomb used by drug cartels in the state of Michoacán Mexico. Fighting criminal groups increasingly hired the former Colombian soldiers who have expertise in explosives.

(For Juan Jose Estrada Serafin / The Times)

A Mexican Military Intelligence Report from 2021 said that the head of an armed cell working under a cartel leader known as El Abuelo, Grandfather, El Abuelo, employed 26 Colombian “guerrillas” to fight opponents from the Jalisco cartel.

The report, which was open to the public by the Hacktivist group Guacamaya, said that a drug master of another group had rented 10 Colombian and paid a salary of $ 600 per week.

Derek Maltz, who resigned as the president of the drug execution management last month, said that Colombian fighters had an obvious charm. Maltz said that in addition to providing spicy muscle to the war, the mercenary soldiers operate as the coach of the player and that young Kartel soldiers helped learn about the art of fighting.

“With the use of IEDs, they are wanted for their expertise – these men are experts in such techniques. They train all gangsters SicariosMal Maltz said, using the term Spanish for men with strokes.

Under his real name, Juan José Farías álvarez, the group is located in the western state of Michoacán, which spreads from the heart of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. The gang was included in the cartel list of the Trump administration, which was determined as foreign terrorist organizations earlier this year.

Re -marking enables the US law enforcement officers to receive harder penalties and open the door to drone strikes or other US military actions in Mexico, and Trump is likely to swim over and over again.

A Mexican soldier is patrolling at Michoacán in 2022.

(Through Alfredo Estrella / AFP Getty Images)

Maltz said that the United States has seen “significant progress ve about security under Trump from Mexico, but argued that the presence of foreign fighters trained in bomb construction strengthened the case for US intervention.

Malt If the US government comes to it, it should use all the vehicles in the vehicle box to neutralize them, ”Maltz said. “They have to feel pain as they have never felt before.”

Jalisco cartel, one of the most powerful crime groups in Mexico, was also included in Trump’s terrorist appointment and is known to have strong Colombia connections.

The Mexican army recently published photographs showing that some Colombians who worked for cartels have fought in wars in the world.

He showed someone the camouflage fatigue worn by a Colombian warrior adorned with patches containing the Ukrainian flag. Another showed a military -style beanie with a logo referring to a Jalisco commander called “El Yogurt ılan, which is said to lead a armed cell containing Colombians.

A Narcorrido Ballad, dedicated to El Yogurt, has methamphetamine cooking skills (“There was no competitor in the kitchen”) and “a support team is a support team, that his friends never leave him behind”.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum gives the morning news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City.

(Marco Ugarte / Associated Press)

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week that his country had met with Colombia about how to stop the flow of mercenaries.

“This was not arrested for the first time from nationality,” he said on Thursday, after his 11 Colombian arrests.

The problem is a sensitive issue in Colombia, where the participation of Colombians in high -profile crimes is a source of shame. President Petro, Colombia’s United Nations Convention Against the recruitment, financing and education of mercenary soldiers.

Some veterans say it’s discriminatory.

After leaving the Colombian army, Ricardo Rodríguez, who worked as a security contractor in the United Arab Emirates, said in an interview that veterans should take their skills to another place.

He said what the old soldiers needed more than the Colombian government.

“They are stuck. There is no hope of progress, ve he said, and added that the veterans of the country would continue to look elsewhere for work until the Colombian government gives them the opportunity to heal their lives”.

Eight months later, Freddy fled the cartel. He returned to Colombia Overland because he lacked identity documents.

Now he’s back home, but he’s unemployed and owed. He is struggling with nightmares about what he saw and what he does in Mexico. In order to harden young fighters, cartel leaders forced them to eat human meat in barbecue.

Nevertheless, he is looking for opportunities to go abroad as a paid soldier. Europe – and the salary he can do there – he still calls him.

“I don’t have a career. I don’t have any other skills,” he said. “When you spend it in the war for many years, you don’t have a vision to do anything else. I love weapons. I love security. I was trained for this.”

Lirthicum reported from Mexico City and Hamilton from San Francisco. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell at Mexico City contributed to this report.