The walls of Sincelejo announce something that everyone in the Sucre capital is more than clear about: the Clan del Golfo, the largest drug trafficking group in Colombia, operates here. Residents of the northern and southern neighborhoods live with threatening signs that cover schools, homes, businesses and even churches. “AGC present”, “EGC Aristides Mendez Block”, they say in reference to the illegal armed group that until recently called itself Gaitanista Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, and which since the end of February changed to the Gaitanista Army of Colombia. The graffiti is a constant reminder for everyone who moves in the infernal heat of the Caribbean municipality of some 300,000 inhabitants: the Clan is watching.
The armed group has been present in Sincelejo since 2007, shortly after the paramilitary structures disarmed, according to an expert source on the armed conflict in the region who prefers to remain anonymous for security reasons. “He has a bit of hidden control. He only shows it when he needs to,” she explains. For this reason, the municipality had never been particularly violent. Until last year, when homicides increased by 73%: they went from 89 in 2022 to 154 in 2023, to leave a rate of 50.6 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, very close to that of Buenaventura, the deadliest city in one of the countries with the most murders in the world.
Behind this increase in violence was the decision of a local gang, Los Norteños, not to pay more “taxes” to the Gulf Clan for its illegal activities. What followed was an urban war that, for a year, turned a relatively quiet city into the second most dangerous in the country, and one of the 25 most unsafe in the world, according to the Citizen Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice. AC (CCSPJP), a Mexican civil society organization. The conflict grew so much that at its peak, in May, the Minister of Defense, Iván Velásquez, traveled to Sincelejo to understand what was happening. Almost a year later, the mayor who took office on January 1, the controversial Yahir Acuña, assures that the dispute has been greatly reduced, but refuses to claim victory. “There is an urban confrontation here,” he insists.
In his air-conditioned office in the center of the city, to the rescue from the 38-degree heat, sits one of the men in charge of ending that war. Néstor Pineda is a middle-aged colonel, good-humored, somewhat muscular, with a military haircut and dressed in a green police uniform. The police commander in the department explains that “for years” the Clan del Golfo has been moving drugs between the mountainous south of Bolívar, a department adjacent to Sucre, to the various gulfs of the coast in the north of the department: an ideal place for take it out to the Caribbean Sea. In the capital, these criminals live off micro-trafficking, extortion and hitmen. And they want it all for themselves.
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That monopoly was broken in December 2022, says the colonel, when Los Norteños emerged from its ranks, seeking to commit crimes without the control of the Clan. According to police intelligence analysts, the Sincelejana gang of about 30 members, with roots in the northern neighborhoods of the city and “without a clear hierarchy,” wanted to stand up to the most powerful criminal organization in the country. As has happened time and time again in history, the groups found a way to resolve the dispute: by killing each other.
Of the 154 homicides that Sincelejo suffered last year, the Police indicate that 52 were due to murders between the two gangs. “Things were strong until November,” says Pineda. At any time, in almost any neighborhood, a member of the Clan or Los Norteños could be shot. Given the Clan's fear of losing control and appearing weak, the violence spread beyond the two groups directly involved. The Clan began murdering people in areas where Los Norteños did not operate. “If anyone did not have the quota that the Clan demanded, they were killed. They didn't want to let other gangs repeat what Los Norteños were doing,” explains the colonel.
He insists that, during the war, murders were increasing, but other crime statistics were decreasing. “Last year I won everything except homicide,” he says, like someone who wants to make sure that he has done a good job. Pineda explains it by arguing that most of the murders were “due to settling scores”: “Bandits were killed,” he declares. On the street, sincelejanos agree, but with cruder words: José Rodríguez, a resident of Altos de la Sabana, in the north of the city, tells EL PAÍS that there was a “social cleansing.” A woman who works at a store in the same area states that “they only killed the bad guys.” Still, they say they didn't feel safe leaving home.
A neighborhood full of threats
About ten minutes by car from the police command, a taxi driver drives through El Progreso, in the southern area. It is 8 in the morning and the temperature is already above 30 degrees. The neighborhood avenue and its colorful houses, schools and small businesses are full of life. “When the pod was hot you couldn't see anyone here, not even the bad guys,” says the driver as he passes a graffiti with the initials EGC – there are at least 20 on the main avenue in the area.
The man stops at a food stand that is in front of an invasion neighborhood made up of houses with dirt floors and sophisticated materials, called Brisas del Sur. On the other side of the street, two houses have Clan graffiti. Supported by wooden sticks, the small coastal coffee and fried food shop is surrounded by police. They stop almost all the men who pass by on their motorcycles to search them. The commander explains that the activity is part of the authorities' new strategy that, he says, has managed to reduce violence. “We are looking for weapons, drugs and suspicious people,” he says. Next to him, the taxi driver states that it's good that the police are here. And he highlights that it was sent by Acuña, the mayor who is celebrating 100 days in office and he likes it very much: “He man “It's like changing the city.”
The new mayor
A few hours later, Yahir Acuña receives EL PAÍS in his office, flanked by three high-ranking officials of the public force, and with a somewhat particular message: to make it clear that the urban war continues. He is 43 years old and has a gold chain around his neck. He wears a white t-shirt, jeans, and clean white Adidas sneakers. He looks relaxed; something like a Caribbean Nayib Bukele.
The controversial politician has been in his career for more than two decades and, since before arriving in Congress in 2010 for an Afro-dominated party, he has been accused of having links with narco-paramilitary and vote-buying groups. However, he has never been brought to trial. In 2015, he was detained by the police for carrying 480 million pesos in cash (about $140,000 at the time) in the van that transported him between Corozal and Sincelejo. There were two days left before an election in which his wife Milene Jarava sought to win the Governorship. The Prosecutor's Office filed the case in 2019. Throughout an interview that continues accompanying him on a tour in his car, Acuña will repeat a phrase three times: “It is a privilege to be investigated in a democracy.”
Acuña and his commanders affirm that this year they have managed to capture more than 10 leaders of Los Norteños and 14 of the Clan del Golfo. They say that although the dispute “has de-escalated” – homicides have dropped by 63% – it still exists. To reduce the conflict, the mayor and the public forces have put together what they call a search block against multicrime. It is made up of the National Police, the Prosecutor's Office, the Army and more. The group meets every Tuesday, they explain, to review the situation in Sincelejo and the region and take action.
Colonel Pineda says that, in addition, the Police “have taken over the city” with more checkpoints, more contact with the community and more operations. Last year, he says, the authorities carried out fewer than 150 raids. This now totals more than 90, almost one a day. The city is now the second with the fewest homicides in the country, according to the National Police.
Acuña also works with young people in the southern zone; The popular neighborhoods in which he grew up are the main source of recruitment for criminal gangs. He says more than 700 kids have recently signed a nonviolence pact, while he proudly shows a video of teenagers handing machetes to authorities and shaking hands.
In the office, the officers and the mayor agree that it has been easier to weaken the Norteños, a local and less organized gang with thirty members at its peak. “They give papaya easier,” says an intelligence analyst. In contrast, the Clan del Golfo, which has a presence in 17 departments and a few thousand men, is much more difficult to dismantle: in order not to lose control and illegal businesses, it simply sends new members when its members in Sincelejo they are captured. Despite this, Acuña is emphatic that the Clan has not won the dispute: “There is no monopoly on crime here.”
When asked about the signs in the southern zone – which also exist in the northern zone – the mayor insists that they are new. She immediately looks at a colonel and tells him to have them deleted. According to the higher-ups, EL PAÍS finds them when they have only been there for a couple of days. They claim they were painted after the Clan changed its name from AGC to EGC, a change that was made more than a month ago. On the street, however, the taxi driver and the neighbors tell a different story: “Those were painted almost two weeks ago, after they killed one of the leaders of the Clan, alias the Wolf.”
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