MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels are recruiting former Colombian soldiers, prompting Mexican authorities to turn away dozens of Colombians trying to enter the country in recent weeks, Mexico’s security chief said Tuesday.
Security Secretary Omar García Harfuch’s comments followed the arrest last week of 12 Colombians in the western state of Michoacan in connection with a mine attack that killed eight Mexican soldiers.
Through contact with Colombian authorities, García Harfuch said that nine of the 12 individuals were former soldiers and the remaining three were civilians with weapons training.
Close underworld ties have long existed between organized crime groups in Mexico and Colombia. For many years, Colombian drug traffickers produced cocaine and heroin and moved it themselves by boat or plane to the United States. Later, as U.S. authorities cracked down on trafficking in the Caribbean, Mexican cartels’ power grew as they moved Colombian drugs over land and via small plane to the U.S. border and smuggled them across.
Decades of internal conflict in Colombia have produced tens of thousands of former soldiers, paramilitaries and guerrillas with weapons training and combat experience.
Colombians have been hired guns in the 2021 assassination of Haiti President Jovenel Moïse and in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
In recent weeks, Mexican immigration authorities rejected 69 Colombians trying to enter Mexico, some of whom in interviews said “they had been coopted by some criminal group.” García Harfuch said Tuesday that both the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels were recruiting Colombians.
Colombia’s ambassador to Mexico, Fernando García, said last week that he feared the arrests would negatively impact ongoing negotiations with Mexico to reduce the number of Colombians prevented from entering the country at Mexican airports.
In March, the Colombian government had said that talks with Mexico were progressing with mechanisms for Mexico and Colombia to verify information about those seeking to enter Mexico.
In October 2023, Mexican authorities arrested eight Colombians also in Michoacan state, who allegedly were helping to make explosives dropped by cartel drones.
Former soldiers from other countries have worked with Mexican cartels too. More than a decade ago, the fearsome Zetas, whose leaders came from Mexico’s military, recruited former members of Guatemala’s special forces Kaibiles in their ranks.
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america