Colombian president claims Sinaloa cartel ‘head’ of guerilla group

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on Friday that the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel was the “head of the ELN” guerilla group whose recent turf war over trafficking routes has killed dozens of people and displaced tens of thousands in his country.

The Colombian government has led a military offensive against ELN rebels in the country’s northeast since mid-January, after a bloody onslaught between the left-wing armed group and ex-members of the now-defunct Farc guerilla force, which disarmed under a 2016 peace pact.

“The owners of these structures are not Colombian commanders … The Sinaloa cartel is the current head of the ELN [National Liberation Army],” leftist leader Petro said in a speech in the northeastern city of Bucaramanga.

For years there have been links between Colombia’s armed groups and the Sinaloa cartel, co-founded by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, who is serving a life sentence in a US prison.

The criminal organisation has become fragmented after the July 2024 arrest of its other founder, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada. It left a power vacuum that sparked a war between two cartel factions which has left hundreds dead and hundreds more missing in northwestern Mexico since last year.