Commentary
The United States recently designated the Clan del Golfo as a terrorist organization. The group, also known as the Gulf Clan, is Colombia’s most powerful guerrilla group and its largest cocaine trafficker. It presents itself as a legitimate political actor, but is actually a criminal cartel of 3,500 with its own uniformed army of 6,000 attached militants.The clan is active in approximately one-third of the 1,103 Colombian municipalities, where it allegedly recruits child soldiers, engages in illegal gold mining, racketeering, embezzlement, and extorts cash from the country’s largest companies. But the Gulf Clan’s primary source of funding is the cocaine business, which kills thousands annually in the United States.
