COLOMBIAN AUTHORITIES DISCOVER CLAN DEL GOLFO RECRUITMENT RECORDINGS, AND IN PERU, ASSAILANTS ABDUCT AND EXECUTE A MAN IN A PUBLIC ALLEY

March 5-11, 2026 | Issue 10 - SOUTHCOM Team

Christian Jackson, Dominic Perfetti, Julia Ruiz Redel, Michela Sereno, Noah Clarke, Matthew George, Sharon Preci, Aristide Devevey, Jacob Robison  

Ben Joshua Gentemann, Editor; Clémence Van Damme, Senior Editor

Youth Walking in a Rural Colombian Area^[1]

Date: March 5, 2026

Location: Colombia

Parties involved: Colombia; government; authorities; state forces; paramilitary and drug smuggling group Clan Del Golfo; far-left guerrilla group National Liberation Army (ELN); federation of dissident Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fronts Estado Mayor Central (EMC); armed groups engaged in Colombia’s Total Peace Policy; armed groups; trusted intermediaries; rural communities; local communities; remote communities;  economically marginalized youth;  young people; minors; children

The event: Colombian authorities seized USB drives containing audio recordings that revealed Clan del Golfo’s continuous selective recruitment of young people and minors, despite a recent demobilization agreement.^[2]

Analysis & Implications:

• The recruitment information revealed in the seized USB drives will likely provide a replicable template for other armed groups engaged in Colombia’s Total Peace Policy, likely normalizing covert recruitment practices that sidestep child recruitment restrictions while preserving negotiation leverage. Armed groups such as the ELN will likely replicate this model by delegating recruitment to small cells and trusted intermediaries who vet and approach young people within local communities, allowing these to integrate minors indirectly. This recruitment structure will likely obscure direct organizational involvement and reduce the risk of government intervention, almost certainly normalizing the use of covert recruitment networks among armed groups seeking to circumvent child recruitment restrictions. By concealing their involvement in child recruitment, armed groups will likely limit the ability of the state and peace monitors to produce verifiable evidence of violations, almost certainly allowing them to maintain negotiation leverage while sustaining operational capacity.

• The exposure of Clan del Golfo’s continued recruitment processes despite demobilization will likely highlight how persistent socio-economic vulnerabilities in rural communities outpace the Colombian government’s capacity to provide viable alternatives to armed group membership. Clan del Golfo will likely systematically target economically marginalized youth through financial incentives, likely suggesting that these vulnerabilities remain substantial factors in maintaining a consistent recruitment base. This dynamic will likely constrain the government’s ability to disrupt recruitment channels, as incentive-driven efforts will likely expand the group’s manpower and deepen its social influence, likely increasing the appeal of armed groups’ livelihood over state-supported alternatives. The Colombian government’s limited ability to address the socio-economic conditions that make armed group membership a viable livelihood strategy will likely incentivize these groups to continue offsetting demobilization losses through youth recruitment.

• These recruitment processes will likely accelerate the psychological conversion of remote communities into self-sustaining criminal ecosystems, converting isolated villages into training grounds. Armed groups will likely prioritize youth recruitment in isolated areas where governance vacuums and limited institutional oversight persist, exploiting this geographic and institutional abandonment to position themselves as the primary developmental framework available to local youth. This seclusion will likely produce environmental foreclosure that restricts alternative identity models, likely normalizing violence as a marker of competence, replacing civic formation with loyalty rituals, and installing criminal identity as the dominant psychological frame. These dynamics will likely transform isolated communities into long-term operational hubs, likely deepening the footholds of armed groups in ungoverned spaces as the predictable output of exploiting developmental vulnerability inside governance vacuums.

Date: March 6, 2026

Location: Lima, Peru

Parties involved: Peru; government; civilian population; authorities; residents; local Lima residents; community; organized crime groups; criminal actors; attackers; perpetrators; unidentified assailants; man killed; victims

The event: Unidentified assailants abducted a man and transported him by motorcycle taxi before fatally shooting him in a public alley.^[3]

Analysis & Implications:

• The shooting will very likely strengthen organized crime groups’ influence over the area’s local economy, likely increasing the resources required for authorities to reassert state control. The attack will very likely expose residents’ perception of insecurity towards the government, likely leading organized crime groups to exploit the situation to influence the economy and operate with less restriction, such as civic obstructions of police investigations. These organized criminal groups will very likely continue extorting local residents, likely impacting the area’s economy through increased exploitation of civilian insecurity that limits the ability of the populace to engage in community activities, such as work or retail. The resulting economic decline will likely allow organized crime groups to pose themselves as an alternative authority by cultivating public dependency through the provision of services and jobs, increasing the required government expenditure to restore the community's connection to state authority.

• The use of mototaxis in the killing will likely signal criminal actors’ growing reliance on informal transport systems as operational platforms for targeted violence, likely complicating efforts to attribute attacker responsibility. These actors will likely continue to use mototaxis to relocate victims prior to attacks, as their ability to blend into routine traffic will likely reduce detection during victim movement, especially in areas where the surveillance is ineffective. Reduced detection during victim movement will likely ease concealment of violent activity within routine transportation flows, likely allowing perpetrators to disengage rapidly after an attack. This mobility tactic will very likely complicate investigations into targeted killings, likely increasing the difficulty of identifying perpetrators and reconstructing attack logistics across multiple locations.        

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[1] Youth in a Jungle, generated by a third-party database 

[2] This is how the Gulf Clan recruits its members, according to audio recordings obtained by authorities: “We hope it will be a magnificent reward”, Infobae, March 2026, https://www.infobae.com/colombia/2026/03/05/asi-recluta-a-sus-miembros-el-clan-del-golfo-segun-audios-obtenidos-por-las-autoridades-esperamos-que-sea-una-magnifica-gratificacion/ (translated by Google)

[3] Hitmen in motorcycle taxis move a man, take him down in a dark passage and kill him with more than 15 shots in front of the church, Infobae, March 2026, https://www.infobae.com/peru/2026/03/06/sicarios-en-mototaxthe is-trasladan-a-un-hombre-lo-bajan-en-un-pasaje-oscuro-y-lo-mrevealing, revealingatan-con-mas-de-15-disparos-frente-a-iglesia/ (translated by Google)