Colombia's cocaine production has tripled in ten years. But it is no longer the leftist guerrilla group Farc, previously closely associated with production, that is behind it, but armed groups with other motives. Now we are dealing with groups that are primarily driven by economic interests, says Nora Taquanas, leader of a community of indigenous Colombians.
A decade after the Farc guerrillas and the Colombian state signed a peace agreement, Colombia's cocaine production is thriving more than ever.
"Before, you could point to a group, sit down with them and discuss things through," says Nora Taquanas to Financial Times (FT) and continues:
"Now we are dealing with groups that are primarily driven by economic interests."
For the Farc guerrillas, cocaine was more of a means than an end. The group was formed by rebels who embraced Marxism and waged a brutal war against the state. From the late 1980s, it financed itself through cocaine trafficking, albeit not directly in the production chain, but rather by taxing coca growers and protecting smugglers.
But when Farc began to disarm in 2016, panic spread among the world's drug dealers. It was unnecessary.
The new generation of armed groups in Colombia has further developed cocaine production, taken it to new heights, and conducts it for economic gain.
New varieties of coca leaves have been cultivated, and processing methods have been refined, meaning more cocaine can be extracted from a single leaf than before. Profits have doubled in the last 20 years, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Colombia's former vice president Humberto de la Calle was the chief negotiator for the 2016 agreement. Today he calls it a "complete failure" and believes the problem is more difficult today because the armed groups are among ordinary people in a different way.
"If you send the military into these areas, who should they shoot at?" de la Calle says to FT.
One of the reasons for the increased cocaine production in Latin America is Europe. The continent has broken records for drug seizures several years in a row. For example, 419 tons of cocaine were seized in Europe in 2023, according to the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The agency states that almost as much cocaine is now consumed in Europe as in the USA.
The Farc guerrillas, Colombia's Revolutionary Armed Forces, were long strongly associated with kidnappings and drug trafficking. In 2016, the group signed a peace agreement with the state that ended a 52-year-long bloody conflict. Over 200,000 lives were extinguished during the years it lasted, and millions of people were driven to flee.
