Somewhere in a remote corner of Mexico, a man recounts his life in the service of the “four letters,” a nickname he uses to refer to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), one of the largest criminal organizations in Latin America. The former Colombian soldier, whose identity has been withheld, claims that other compatriots have been recruited into the gang, “pure commandos and special forces,” although he is also a colleague of “ex-guerrillas.” The man speaks for a few minutes about the details of his work: his pay and vacation time, as if it were an ordinary job and not a direct ticket to jail or the grave.
The growing presence of former Colombian military personnel in Mexico has authorities on edge. Last week, Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration reported the arrest of 12 Colombian citizens in connection with the deaths of eight soldiers from an antipersonnel mine in Michoacán, in the center of the country. Nine of those arrested are former military personnel, while the other three had received military training. This case adds to other recent incidents in the region, where authorities have linked Colombian citizens to drone bomb attacks. In Guanajuato, local police claim to have identified “Colombian paramilitaries, lancers, and explosives experts.”
The trend is of concern to Mexican authorities. Hundreds of former Colombian soldiers are leaving their country each year to fight in foreign conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, attracted by high salaries. “To put this into perspective, in 2008, in Latin America alone, there were 12,000 mercenaries, and by 2018, the number was estimated at 2.4 million,” says Paloma Mendoza Cortés, a professor and expert in national security at ITAM, one of Mexico’s most prestigious universities. “Most of them are of Colombian origin, and for many years the government denied their existence. It’s a surprising phenomenon and one that has a decisive influence that helps explain the increase in the firepower of organized crime.”
In Mexico, the CJNG and other groups offer large sums to mercenaries to fight in an extremely violent environment. In each of the last eight years, Mexico has recorded more than 30,000 murders, most of them committed with firearms. Drug trafficking to the United States, the illegal flow of weapons southward, and the mafia-like practices of criminal groups, immersed in thousands of battles to control entire regions, exacerbate the violence.
“We’re part of the Jalisco Cartel. We’re allied with Sinaloa and Los Viagras,” the former Colombian soldier says in WhatsApp audio recordings obtained by EL PAÍS. He’s referring to the Sinaloa Cartel, the country’s other major criminal enterprise, and Los Viagras, a long-standing network of extortionists and drug traffickers from Michoacán. “Other cartels like the Knights Templar are contras [enemies], but they’re smaller. Here, we often fight with them too. We’ve killed a huge number of them. And we also fight with the government,” he asserts. “The job is permanent.”
The person receiving the audio recordings is Juan, another former Colombian soldier who uses a fake name for fear of reprisals. Mexican criminal groups, he says, seek out people who, like him, have experience in other conflicts. “I was in Ukraine for a few months. Many of us created TikTok accounts where we showed our daily lives. The cartels contact you through them,” says the 31-year-old retired soldier. The offer his colleague on the other end of the line puts forward is very attractive: $2,000 a month, with weekly cash payments. The cartels, he explains, offered him and other colleagues direct travel from Warsaw (Poland) to Mexico. “Leaving from Colombia is more difficult. You have to cross the Darién River with fake passports, and now, with the security Panama has put in place, it makes you think twice,” he notes.
Colombians are highly valued in the military contractor market overseas. Andrés Macías, a member of the U.N. Working Group on the use of Mercenaries, explains that this is due to their “extensive experience” in counterinsurgency combat. “The level of training of the Colombian military is very high and almost comparable to that of the United States. Furthermore, a regular soldier can retire at 40. In other words, at a young age, people can accumulate up to 20 years of military experience in one of the most highly trained armies in the world,” he points out.
The most common reason former military personnel give for becoming mercenaries — in more than a dozen countries such as Ukraine, Russia, Yemen, and the United Arab Emirates, among others — is the meager retirement pay they receive as veterans. Offers from security companies, foreign militaries, and now cartels are also pushing many to fight in foreign conflicts.
The lure of earning up to five times more has led many to fall into traps, as several Colombian groups have reported, such as those who fought with Sudanese paramilitaries or those currently facing prosecution for the assassination of Jovenel Moïse in Haiti. “Many are offered a contract to perform specific activities and are then forced to do others. This is what is known as predatory recruitment,” explains Macías. Being in an unknown country, often without their own money or documentation, recruits are vulnerable to falling entirely into the hands of these mercenary networks.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, along with his administration, has promoted a law against mercenarism to prohibit an activity that “exploits retired military personnel.” Those involved in the business blame the Colombian government for failing to protect veterans so they can adapt to civilian life.
The Los Zetas precedent
Although Mexican authorities did not provide details about the ties between the 12 detainees in Michoacán, Petro stated that they were linked to the Reyes Cartel, part of the criminal umbrella of Cárteles Unidos, a regional criminal organization. It remains unclear how this group arrived in the region. What is clear to the administrations of both countries is that the Colombia-Michoacán route has been operating for years.
In several Mexican army intelligence documents leaked by the cyberactivist group Guacamaya, the movements of Colombian mercenary troops in Michoacán can be monitored since the end of 2021. That same year, the National Intelligence Fusion Center (CENIF) reported that “Kamoni,” then a member of the Tepalcatepec Cartel, also under the umbrella of Cárteles Unidos, had “26 Colombians employed in the fight with the CJNG, referring to them being used as ‘guerrillas.’”
In January 2022, according to these documents, the Cárteles Unidos local boss in the municipality of Los Reyes, “Quiringua,” told someone that “his doctor had treated 18 Colombians” who were “ready to be sent to work.” The military report added: “Quiringua has stated on multiple occasions that he is sending Colombian citizens to confront the CJNG.”
These cases show that cartels have been familiar with the use of Colombian mercenaries and foreign recruits for several years. Two decades ago, the expansion of Los Zetas, the armed wing of the Gulf Cartel, was reported with the arrival in Mexico of kaibiles, elite members of the Guatemalan army. As now, it was never clear how many were recruited, nor what exact role they played. In some regions, agricultural or industrial producers have also hired mercenary groups to combat crime.
“This phenomenon must be taken very seriously and included in both strategic planning and the implementation and evaluation of public security policies in Mexico,” says Mendoza Cortés. “It is urgent to address the situation of retired military personnel, who are highly vulnerable to recruitment by these types of organizations, primarily due to their attractive salaries compared to military pensions.”
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