Colombia’s Total Peace Policy Falters as Hardline Measures Take Hold

Colombia’s recent pivot away from the “Total Peace” framework has sparked debate over the durability of its peace initiatives.

How is Colombia’s new president translating his hardline campaign promises into policy?

Is Ecuador nearing accountability for the mastermind behind the high‑profile assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio?

Does a recent surge of high‑profile arrests and killings across Latin America indicate a revived reliance on the kingpin strategy, and what might follow?

Here are this week’s three leading organized‑crime stories from On the Radar.

1. Colombia’s De la Espriella Ends “Total Peace,” Opens Door to Glyphosate

President Abelardo de la Espriella’s administration has terminated talks with three armed groups: dissidents of the General Staff of Blocks and Front (EMBF) under the alias “Calarcá”; the National Coordinator of the Bolivarian Army (CNEB), which incorporates the Border Command; and the Conquering Self‑Defense Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN). In parallel, the government repealed the ten‑year moratorium on aerial glyphosate spraying of coca fields, although it notes that resumption will await fulfillment of specific environmental and judicial requirements.

These actions illustrate the magnitude of de la Espriella’s campaign pledge to replace negotiation with a militarized, hard‑line approach. However, InSight Crime has noted that aerial glyphosate alone has never resolved Colombia’s coca replanting challenge, and abandoning former president Gustavo Petro’s Total Peace initiative could drive splintered armed factions back into open conflict rather than integrating them with the state.

2. Deported Ex-Minister Jailed in Ecuador’s Villavicencio Assassination Case

Former Ecuadorian interior minister and former National Assembly president José Serrano was deported from the United States on August 28 and taken straight to the high‑security El Encuentro prison. Prosecutors claim he leveraged his police connections to assist in planning the 2023 assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Serrano is among seven individuals slated for trial as alleged masterminds of the killing.

The case serves as a litmus test for Ecuador’s ability to hold its political elite accountable for links to organized crime. This week’s InSight Take, “Who Killed Fernando Villavicencio? Ecuador’s Reckoning,” examines the evidence against Serrano and his six co‑defendants and explains what the outcome means for the country’s broader anti‑crime strategy.

3. Kingpin Strategy Going Strong Across the Region

Three distinct operations carried out this week highlight how central the kingpin strategy—targeting the leadership of criminal organizations—remains to security policy throughout Latin America.

• Jhonsson Pulpo, leader of Peru’s Pulpos gang, captured in Bolivia. Jhonsson Smit Cruz Torres, known as “Jhonsson Pulpo,” had headed the Trujillo‑based extortion and kidnapping ring since he took over from his father at age 17. He was apprehended in La Paz on September 1 during a joint Bolivian‑Peruvian operation supported by the FBI and the DEA, even after he had faked his death and undergone plastic surgery to conceal his identity.
• “El R5,” accused leader of Mexico’s Los Reyes, killed in Michoacán. Luis Enrique Barragán Chávez, alias “El R5,” died in a firefight with Mexican army and National Guard troops in Tocumbo, Michoacán, on August 30. He had assumed command of Los Reyes—a faction of the Cárteles Unidos coalition—just one month prior, following the arrest of the group’s former leader.
• Alleged Tiguerones leader captured in Colombia. Eduardo Cecilio Vásquez Ortiz, known by the alias “Colombia,” was detained in Armenia, Colombia, on August 26 during a coordinated Colombian‑Ecuadorian police operation. He is alleged to have overseen drug trafficking and contract‑killing activities for Ecuador’s Tiguerones gang while residing in Colombia.

For decades, the kingpin strategy has rested on the assumption that eliminating top leaders will cripple a criminal organization. Yet experience repeatedly shows that taking out such figures frequently sparks succession battles and renewed violence rather than causing the group’s disintegration.

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