SUMMARY

Paramilitary group active in Putumayo as a response to activities by FARC dissident group Carolina Ramírez

Los Comandos de la Frontera, or the Border Command, formerly known as La Mafia, is a group made up of dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC) and La Constru, a post-demobilization successor of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia - AUC), which looks to maintain control over drug trafficking in Bajo Putumayo and along Colombia’s border with Ecuador.

La Mafia formed as an alliance between dissident elements of the now defunct-FARC’s 48th and 32nd Fronts and La Constru to reactivate drug trafficking in Putumayo after the signing of the Peace Agreement affected the prices of base paste and cocaine hydrochloride, making them less profitable.

However, the group, now called the Comandos de Frontera, or the Border Command, have become a criminal actor in their own right. The group changed its name at the end of 2020 in an attempt to clean up its image and distance itself from the threats against and murders of social leaders. Nevertheless, it continues to intimidate communities and engage in a conflict with the Carolina Ramírez Front, another dissident group of the FARC, with which it competes for control of illegal crops and drug trafficking routes.