Los Rastrojos

Los Rastrojos (Rondas Campesinas Populares)

Los Rastrojos Comandos Urbanos
Founded	2004; 20 years ago (2004)
Founding location	Cali, Valle del Cauca, Colombia
Years active	2004–present
Territory	Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Central America, Mexico
Ethnicity	Colombians and criminals of various ethnicity are employed
Membership	310 (as of February 2017)[1]
Criminal activities	Murder, drug trafficking, extortion, arms trafficking, money laundering and illegal gold mining
Allies	Sinaloa Cartel Daniel Barrera Barrera The Office of Envigado
Rivals	Clan del Golfo[2] ELN[3]

Los Rastrojos is a Colombian drug cartel and paramilitary group engaged in the Colombian armed conflict. The group was formed by Norte del Valle cartel capo Wilber Varela, alias "Jabon" and one of his right-hand men, "Diego Rastrojo", around 2004 when Varela fell out with fellow-capo Diego Leon Montoya, alias "Don Diego".^[4] The group became independent after the murder of its main founder in Venezuela in 2008 and at its height was one of the most important drug trafficking organizations in Colombia.

The group funds itself primarily by trafficking cocaine, marijuana and heroin, and illegal gold mining, thus taking advantage of high gold prices in 2010 and 2011.^[5][6]

Los Rastrojos are, together with the Norte del Valle cartel, considered the "heirs" of the Cali cartel. Other reports allege Los Rastrojos are in fact the same as the Norte del Valle cartel, only working under a new name and taking advantage 'of a strong network of assassins, distributors and contacts in the international markets'.^[7] The group focuses on buying coca from the source, processing it themselves and selling it wholesale for international distribution or shipping it themselves through Central America and Mexico.

They are believed to operate mainly in Valle del Cauca and Cali, although there are reports of them spreading their zone of influence to other parts of Colombia and western Venezuela.^[8] In 2012, membership was estimated at 1,200 to 1,500 fighters and hitmen.^[9] Several members of Los Rastrojos have been killed or arrested in Venezuela by the Venezuelan armed forces.^[10]

The expansion of the group under the brothers Javier Antonio and Luis Enrique Calle Serna, both referred to as "Comba," was exponential. Since 2009, it left its traditional hub along the Pacific Coast to operate in a third of Colombia's 32 departments. The Rastrojos, who take their name from one of their militia leaders, are primarily engaged in exporting cocaine and heroin to international markets. At the local level, they are also involved in extortion and kidnapping. The Rastrojos move drugs primarily up the Pacific Coast to Central America and Mexico where they sell it to Mexican drug traffickers who take it to the United States. They also have control of one of the primary smuggling routes into Venezuela, which is a bridge for cocaine moving towards Europe and northwards into the US on aircraft and go-fast boats.

The Rastrojos were born out of the powerful Norte del Valle drug cartel and rose to become one of the most powerful transnational criminal syndicates in Colombia, until their top leadership surrendered or was captured in 2012. The last organized faction of Los Rastrojos was captured in 2017, and the group splintered into several fractions.^[11][12] By this point, the cartel was also reduced to having only 310 members and dependent on alliances with paramilitary groups in order to continue drug transportation.^[1] In July 2017, it was reported that Los Rastrojos now consisted of only three fractions.^[1] By March 2020, Los Rastrojos no longer had an alliance with the Colombian left-wing militant group National Liberation Army (ELN) and was now involved in a direct armed confront with the group as well.^[3]