The FARC’s 48th Front has formed alliances with criminal groups to secure its drug trafficking activities in the south of Colombia, the country’s defense minister said Thursday.
Minister Rodrigo Rivera, who was attending a security meeting in the south Colombian Putumayo department, said that in that department the FARC is decreasingly fighting with other groups for the control of coca fields and routes used for the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people.
According to Rivera, the FARC, former paramilitary groups, and drug gang “Los Rastrojos” have been forced to stop fighting and start working together because of ongoing pressure by the armed forces.
The FARC is known to have made alliances with Los Rastrojos in the south west of Colombia and with neo-paramilitary organization ERPAC in the east.