Rastrojos

The Rastrojos are a Colombian criminal group with influence in Norte de Santander, a border department between Colombia and Venezuela. While they were once considered the largest criminal organization in Colombia, they have since shrunk into a smaller group with limited territorial presence.

The group emerged from the once powerful Norte de Valle Cartel. The Rastrojos once held sway over large swaths of Colombia, but their influence waned after the arrests of their main leaders. The group has since managed to remain in power in a small border area, while larger criminal organizations seek to expel them from the territory once and for all.

History

The Rastrojos were born in 2002 as the armed wing for Wilber Varela, alias “Jabon,” one of the main leaders of the Norte del Valle Cartel. At the time, Varela was fighting a rival in the same organization, Diego Montoya, alias “Don Diego,” and Montoya’s private army, the “Machos.”

One of Varela’s lieutenants, Diego Perez Henao, alias “Diego Rastrojo,” recruited the first members, and the group took on his name. In addition to providing armed support for the CDNV’s internal war, members of the group also protected drug laboratories and key routes for their leader and top lieutenants along Colombia’s southwestern departments.

Later, in an attempt to enter peace talks between the government and paramilitary groups, the group called itself Popular Peasant Patrols (Rondas Campesinas Populares – RCP). While paramilitaries, under the banner of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC), signed a peace agreement with the government in July 2004, the Colombian government did not allow the RCP to participate in the negotiations.

From 2006 onwards, the Rastrojos expanded beyond their traditional hub along the Pacific Coast, first into the coffee-growing region of Quindio, Risaralda, and Caldas, later into the northern Colombia border department of La Guajira. They eventually had operations in more than a third of Colombia’s 32 provinces.

As the Rastrojos grew, Varela began to lose control. In 2008, he was murdered by Javier Antonio Calle Serna, alias “Comba,” and Diego Rastrojo, after he attempted to prevent them from expanding operations in the northern Colombian departments of Santander and Norte de Santander. Following Varela’s death, his former armed wing grew to become one of the most powerful players in the drug trafficking, extortion, and kidnapping businesses.

One powerful ally of the group was Daniel Barrera, alias “El Loco,” who, along with the Comba brothers and Diego Rastrojo, was part of the Rastrojos’ top leadership. Loco Barrera maintained operations in the eastern departments of Meta and Guaviare and oversaw much of the international trafficking, while Diego Rastrojo commanded the rural Rastrojos.

The Comba brothers worked in urban areas such as Cali, running networks of “sicarios,” or assassins. While maintaining their traditional stronghold in Valle del Cauca, the group expanded into neighboring Nariño and Cauca, and deepened alliances with the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN).

The group even managed to expand into Antioquia, specifically to the sub-region of Bajo Cauca, where, despite the presence of rivals, the Urabeños, they managed to control production laboratories and take on key drug trafficking routes to the north of the country.

By 2010, the Rastrojos had risen to become Colombia’s most powerful criminal group. 

However, the group collapsed in 2012 with the fall of three of their top leaders. Comba was arrested in May 2012, and Diego Rastrojo, was captured the following month. In September of the same year, Loco Barrera was captured in Venezuela, and in October 2012, Comba’s brother, Luis Enrique, also handed himself over to US authorities, leaving the group with no clear leader.

In further blows to the group, the US Treasury Department placed sanctions on the Rastrojos under the Kingpin Act in early 2013. Diego Rastrojo was extradited to the United States on drug trafficking charges that same year.

Despite having lost most of their territorial presence and armed capacity by 2013, small cells of the group remained in departments such as Nariño, Cauca, Valle del Cauca, and Norte de Santander.

The cells in Valle del Cauca eventually morphed into more local structures, renaming themselves La Inmaculada, based in Tulua, a city in the northern part of the department. They joined forces with local gangs to become a regionally powerful criminal group involved in drug trafficking, extortion schemes, and even corruption scandals in local government. 

Cells from the former Rastrojos broke off to form their own criminal groups elsewhere. In Barranquilla, a port city on the Caribbean coast, there is another group known as the Costeños, or the Oficina de la Costa. After emerging in 2013 as a splinter group of the Rastrojos, the Costeños grew into one of the city’s most powerful groups, working in debt collection, murder-for-hire, and extortion schemes until their fragmentation in 2021. Another group emerged from this split, named the Rastrojos Costeños, an ode to the original group. 

The cell in Norte de Santander managed to lift the Rastrojos from the ashes and grow stronger by tapping into resources obtained from drug trafficking, smuggling, and other criminal economies along the Venezuelan border.

The resurgence of the Rastrojos drew the attention of rival criminal groups that sought to seize their territory. Starting in 2015, the Rastrojos engaged in an intense struggle with their long-time enemies, the Urabeños, for control of the municipalities of Cúcuta and Puerto Santander. By 2017, the Rastrojos had declared victory and even expanded into the Venezuelan state of Táchira. But their dominance was short-lived.

At that time, the ELN had already begun expanding into Rastrojos territory. By 2019, direct confrontation had begun, and happened at a particularly bad time for the Rastrojos, who were facing internal tensions.

Throughout 2020, clashes with the ELN continued, severely weakening the Rastrojos. That same year, Venezuela’s Bolivarian National Armed Forces (Fuerza Armada Nacional Bolivariana – FANB) also started targeting the group, further reducing their power. From that point on, the Rastrojos lost their presence in Venezuela, and their influence in Norte de Santander diminished considerably.

In 2021, in a desperate attempt to maintain their footing, the Rastrojos turned to their former enemies, the Urabeños, now known as the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), seeking support in their battle against the ELN in Norte de Santander, but did not succeed in uprooting the ELN.

The various splinter groups that emerged from the decline of the Rastrojos are still active in several other parts of Colombia, including the Rastrojos Costeños in Barranquilla and the La Imaculada in Valle del Cauca. In 2025, the mayor of the municipality of Río Frío, Valle del Cauca, denounced death threats she had received from a gang calling itself the “New Generation of Rastrojos” (Nueva Generación de los Rastrojos). The group is believed to be made up of former members of the Rastrojos, who were never arrested and continued to participate in drug trafficking even after the fall of the group. Other recent incidents, such as the kidnapping of a child related to “settling of scores” between former members of the Rastrojos have exacerbated concerns.

Leadership

The Rastrojos’ leadership has been marked by constant internal divisions.

The Rastrojos faced leadership disputes even before the loss of Comba and Diego Rastrojo, due to a split between the followers of Comba and his brothers, and those of Diego Rastrojo. The arrests of these bosses left the group without a clear leader, which resulted in a loss of power and fewer recruits.

In 2019, another internal fracture emerged within the group’s leadership after the main leader of the Rastrojos, Wilfrido Torres, alias “Necoclí,” was arrested in Venezuela. After his capture, Jhon Jairo Durán, alias “Menor,” one of Necoclí’s subordinates, assumed leadership. However, even from prison, Necoclí refused to relinquish power, triggering an internal war within the group.

The group’s current leadership is unknown, as their weak presence has produced little impact on criminal dynamics in Colombia in recent years.

Criminal Activities

The Rastrojos were a key player in Colombia’s drug trafficking panorama in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Initially, their role involved protecting laboratories and routes for drug shipments. As they gained control over key territories for criminal economies, they began playing a larger role in drug trafficking dynamics, establishing important relationships nationally and internationally.

The group’s ties to Loco Barrera elevated their status within Latin America’s criminal landscape, eventually trafficking not only drugs but also chemical precursors for the Sinaloa Cartel. 

Following the arrests of top leaders, the group’s reach shrank significantly, although in Norte de Santander, where they maintained their main criminal stronghold, the Rastrojos profited from involvement in drug trafficking, smuggling, extortion, and human trafficking across the informal border crossings known as “trochas” along the Venezuelan frontier.

But their involvement in criminal economies has declined significantly as the group has lost control over territory and seen their membership dwindle to almost nothing.

Geography

Initially, the Rastrojos stronghold was in the departments of Valle del Cauca and Cauca, along Colombia’s Pacific coast. During the peak of their power, the group also operated in Antioquia, Bolívar, Cesar, Chocó, Córdoba, Nariño, Norte de Santander, Putumayo, Santander, and Valle del Cauca. They also had influence and participated in drug trafficking operations in neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Ecuador.

The group’s small remaining presence is concentrated in Norte de Santander, a department bordering Venezuela.  Offshoots of the groups remain in their traditional stronghold of Valle del Cauca and urban areas along the Caribbean coast, such as Barranquilla.

Allies and Enemies

At the height of their criminal activity, the Rastrojos differed from other Colombian criminal groups by not seeking control of every part of the drug distribution chain, and instead relying on strategic alliances with rebel groups and former right-wing paramilitaries to move their product.

For several years, the Rastrojos had an agreement with the ELN in Cauca and Nariño and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC) in other parts of the country. Both these alliances gave the Rastrojos direct access to coca base — the raw material for cocaine — at very low prices.

The Rastrojos’ other main ally, Loco Barrera, had struck similar agreements with the FARC in other areas before his capture in Venezuela in September 2012. Together, the Rastrojos and Loco Barrera obtained a huge competitive advantage, leading to strong partnerships with Mexican cartels.

After the resurgence of the group in Norte de Santander, the Rastrojos maintained an alliance with the Popular Liberation Army (Ejército Popular de Liberación – EPL), consisting of non-aggression agreements that allowed both groups to profit from the criminal economies along the Venezuela border. But that alliance eventually broke down after disagreements over control of those same areas.

After losing their former ally, the Rastrojos turned to their former enemies, the Urabeños, in 2021, to join forces and confront the ELN in Norte de Santander, but were unable to destabilize the guerrilla group, which still dominates the department today.

Despite their weakened state, the Rastrojos have maintained alliances with other criminal actors, such as the Tren de Aragua. Both groups are involved in human trafficking on the Colombia-Venezuela border.

Prospects

After the intense blows suffered by the Rastrojos in recent years, the group has lost almost all their armed and territorial capacity along the Venezuela border. The remnants of the group could be absorbed by the AGC or remain as small franchises that act under the group’s name without maintaining clear unity and a line of command.

Elsewhere, former members of the Rastrojos continue to participate in more organized and sophisticated criminal groups, ​​such as the Inmaculada in Valle del Cauca. Concerns about the resurgence of these offshoot groups grew in 2025 after groups claiming to be the successors of the Rastrojos made threats against public officials in the department.