The jungle paths of Colombia are running red again. I have seen the cables, the classified briefings that land on Whitehall desks at 3am. Sources confirm that the fragile ceasefire between the government and the ELN has collapsed completely. Over the past 72 hours, coordinated attacks on military outposts in Chocó and Nariño have left at least 27 soldiers dead. This is not a routine skirmish. This is a calculated escalation designed to bleed the state dry.
Documents obtained from intelligence channels reveal that the ELN has secured a fresh supply of Venezuelan-manufactured ammunition, likely paid for with cocaine profits routed through Caribbean shell companies. The same companies, my files show, have been linked to London property purchases. You don't need to be a forensic accountant to connect those dots.
The ceasefire was always a fiction. It allowed the ELN to rearm while President Gustavo Petro’s government pretended to negotiate peace. Now the pretence is over. In Putumayo, paramilitary groups have mobilised to fill the vacuum, massacring suspected guerrilla collaborators. The bodies are piling up along the riverbanks.
Why should London care? Because Colombia is the UK’s third-largest trade partner in Latin America. British firms have £2.3 billion in mining and oil assets there. BP, Anglo American, and Glencore all have deep interests. These companies do not operate in a vacuum. Their security contracts, I am told, rely on local militias who answer to no one. When the state loses control, the corporate sector becomes the target.
I spoke to a source who worked in the British Embassy in Bogotá until last year. He told me: “The FCDO knows the peace process was a sham. They funded it anyway because the alternative was worse. But now the alternative has arrived.” He meant a full-blown civil war that could spill into neighbouring Ecuador and Peru.
Already, the cocaine supply chain is adjusting. European ports are reporting a surge in seizures from Colombia’s Pacific coast. The cartels are stockpiling product, betting on shortages to drive prices up. And somewhere offshore, accountants in Panama or the Cayman Islands are adjusting ledgers for the new flow of blood money.
The UK government has a choice. It can continue to issue statements condemning violence while protecting corporate access. Or it can freeze assets, impose sanctions on ELN funders, and cut off the financial arteries that fuel this conflict. But that would mean going after the well-connected. Don’t hold your breath.
I will be updating this report as more information comes in. But one thing is already clear: the bodies in the Colombian jungle have names. And some of them, somewhere in London, have bank accounts.
