BBC joins Colombian commandos fighting ‘never-ending battle’ against drug gangs

Just nowOrla GuerinSenior International Correspondent in Colombia

The Black Hawk helicopter was ready for take off – its rotor blades slicing through the air in the deadening heat of the Colombian Amazon. We ducked low and crammed in alongside the Jungle Commandos – a police special operations unit armed by the Americans and originally trained by Britain’s SAS, when it was founded in 1989.

The commandos were heavily armed. The mission was familiar. The weather was clear. But there was tension on board, kicking in with the adrenaline. When you go after any part of the drug trade in Colombia, you have to be ready for trouble.

The commandos often face resistance from criminal groups, and current and former guerrillas who have replaced the cartels of the 1970s and 80s.

We took off, flying over the district of Putumayo – close to the border with Ecuador – part of Colombia’s cocaine heartland. The country provides about 70% of the world’s supply.

Just ahead two other Black Hawks were leading the way.

Down below us there was dense forest and patches of bright green – the tell-tale sign of coca plant cultivation. The crop now covers an area nearly twice the size of Greater London, and four times the size of New York, according to the latest figures from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), published in 2024.

BBC/ Goktay Koraltan

President Donald Trump says Colombia’s left-wing President Gustavo Petro is not doing enough to prevent cocaine from his country winding up on America’s streets. Last month he called him “a sick man who likes selling cocaine to the United States” and said “he could be next” for US military intervention. But that threat appears to have receded.

President Petro counters that his government has seized the largest amount of drugs in history. But on his watch cocaine production has also soared to record highs, according to the United Nations ‘World Drug Report 2025. Petro disputes the UN’s method of counting.

The fight against drug production and trafficking from Colombia will be high on the agenda when the two presidents meet in the White House on Tuesday.

BBC/ Goktay Koraltan

After 20 minutes, we land at a clearing in the jungle and see the first stage of a global drug trade. The commandos lead us to a crude cocaine lab, partly hidden by banana trees. It’s little more than a shack but it has the key ingredients – drums of chemicals and a mound of fresh coca leaves, ready to be turned into a paste.

Two women and a man emerge from the trees, probably workers at the lab – willing or unwilling. One of the women is in torn clothing and all wear wellington boots. The commandos question them briefly but make no arrests. Colombia’s anti -narcotics strategy targets those at the top of the cocaine trade, not the dirt-poor farmers at the bottom.

Minutes later we are rushed away as the commandos prepare to set the lab alight – destroying the crop, and the chemicals.

“There are 50 or 60 more labs in this area,” says one officer, who does not want to be named.

Dense black smoke rises from the forest as we take off. An energy drink is handed around among the commandos, who could soon be doing this all over again. Weather permitting, it’s rinse and repeat. They carry out these operations several times a day.

BBC/ Goktay Koraltan

Back at base, Major Cristhian Cedano Díaz takes a few moments to unwind with his men. He’s a 16-year veteran of the war on drugs, standing ram rod straight, with a handgun in a holster around his neck – and with no illusions.

When asked how quickly a drug lab can be rebuilt, his response is immediate.

“In one day,” he says, with a rueful smile. “It’s just a matter of changing or moving a few metres. We have seen it before. Sometimes, when we return to areas where operations have taken place, we find structures have been rebuilt just a few metres away. “

But he insists that destroying one lab after another serves a purpose.

“We are affecting the profitability of the criminal groups,” he says. “They can rebuild countless times, but they are losing the coca crop, and the chemical precursors they need.”

BBC/ Goktay Koraltan

His enemy is evolving. Colombia’s drug gangs use drones and bitcoin and bring chemists into the jungle to create ingredients on site. Major Cedano Díaz, 37, admits the cocaine war may not be over his lifetime.

“I dream of the day [when that happens],” he says. “I imagine our descendants see it and will remember those we lost to achieve that goal.”

His losses include several colleagues of different ranks, in different parts of the country.

“Sadly, we had to bring flags to their families, and say they were no longer with us,” he says. “I remember them with pride for continuing to fight in a never-ending battle.”

Under attack from Donald Trump for not doing enough, Colombia’s Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez has defended his country’s record, politely.

“The president has been misinformed,” he told us. “We destroy cocaine factories every forty minutes. And over the past three and half years we have seized 2,800 tonnes of cocaine. That amounts to 47 billion doses of cocaine that never reached foreign markets.”

He argues that the demand for cocaine is also a problem, not just the supply. “With cocaine use rising in Europe, it’s very difficult to eradicate the supply here,” he says.

Cocaine is the second most commonly used illicit drug in Europe – after cannabis – according to the European Union Drugs Agency. It says the availability and use of the of the drug continue to increase, “resulting in greater costs to society”.

BBC / Goktay Koraltan

We followed the cocaine trail from the Amazon to the Colombian Andes, bordering Venezuela. Here the peaks extend into the clouds, and the beauty is matched by the hardship.

We changed vehicles – to a car owned by a trusted local contact – before beginning the step climb up the mountains in Catatumbo. You don’t come here unannounced.

There are two guerrilla groups in this area – the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), most of whose members demobilised after a peace deal in 2016 ending half a century of civil war.

We met a local farmer – we are calling him “Javier” – who insisted that growing the coca plant was the only way to feed his family.

He showed us his latest crop, some of it shoulder high. When we wanted to get some footage with a drone he warned us to stay low. “Otherwise, guerrillas will see it,” he said.

Home for Javier is a bare breeze block house, with no glass in some of the windows, and the sound of children’s laughter coming from inside. He has five daughters – “the most beautiful thing God has given me”, he says. His eldest is in college, studying to be a teacher.

His two youngest girls play, in a discarded bookcase – the nearest they have to a dolls house. Javier speaks with regret about not being able to buy his daughters presents at Christmas, and about his struggle to feed them.

BBC/ Goktay Koraltan

I point out his crop could kill someone else’s children. Does he ever think about that, I ask.

“The truth is yes,” he says. “Sometimes you do think about that.

“But if you want to survive, you don’t. There are no opportunities with this government. I have children, and of course I think about other children who could be harmed. It’s not about whether you want to [grow coca] or not. You have to.”

He shows us his makeshift lab, down a muddy track. He cooks up cocaine paste here, when he has the chemicals and the fuels.

But these days he says the local guerrillas aren’t buying because of a turf war. When he risked a journey to a local town to make a sale he was robbed of his crop and his phone.

Javier is thinking of going back to his old job – coal mining – for economic reasons rather than moral ones. But he says the mines have also been hit hard by the government. “Insurance went up,” he tells us, “so wages went down.”

He’s had no trouble with the authorities, so far. “I believe they know what’s happening here,” he tells us, “but the truth is they don’t come around – maybe because of the armed groups.”

He has a plea for President Trump: instead of threatening Colombia, consider why farmers like him grow the coca plant, and send economic help.

Javier is 39 – just two years old than Major Cedano Díaz. Both men are on opposite sides of this country’s drug war, and both are hoping their children will inherit a different Colombia.

Additional reporting by Wietske Burema, Goktay Koraltan, Jhon Jairo Jácome, Lina María Sandoval

Colombia