OFAC Sanctions Colombian President Gustavo Petro for Narcotics Violations

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From a US Treasury News Release

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is designating Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego (Gustavo Petro), the President of Colombia, pursuant to counternarcotics-related authorities. In addition, OFAC is also designating several supporters of Gustavo Petro, namely his wife, his son, and a close associate.

“Since President Gustavo Petro came to power, cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans,” said Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent. “President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity. Today, President Trump is taking strong action to protect our nation and make clear that we will not tolerate the trafficking of drugs into our nation.”

Today’s action was taken pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 14059, which targets foreign persons involved in the global illicit drug trade.

Gustavo Petro Sanctioned

According to the news release, Colombia remains the world’s top producer and exporter of cocaine. Cocaine from Colombia is often purchased by Mexican cartels, who then smuggle it into the United States via the southern border. It is a scheduled substance that is a significant drug threat to the United States, despite Gustavo Petro’s recent, flippant comparison of the use of the drug to whiskey.

Gustavo Petro is a former guerilla member who was elected to the Colombian presidency in 2022. He has provided narco-terrorist organizations with benefits under the auspices of his “total peace” plan, among other policies, which have led to record highs of coca cultivation and cocaine production. On September 15, 2025, because of Gustavo Petro and his cronies’ actions, the President determined Colombia is a major drug transit or major illicit drug producing country and that it is “failing demonstrably” to uphold its drug control responsibilities.

Gustavo Petro’s erratic behavior has also driven Colombia further apart from its partners in additional ways. In 2024, he shared confidential information obtained via secure anti-money laundering communication channels, threatening the integrity of the international financial system and leading to the suspension of Colombia’s Financial Intelligence Unit from The Egmont Group. He also has allied himself with the narco-terrorist regime of Nicolas Maduro Moros and the Cartel de Los Soles.

Targeting Petro's Network & Enablers

Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos, Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia, and Armando Benedetti are being designated today pursuant to E.O. 14059 for having provided, or attempted to provide, financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Gustavo Petro.

Gustavo Petro is being designated today pursuant to E.O. 14059 for having engaged in, or attempted to engage in, activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a significant risk of materially contributing to, the international proliferation of illicit drugs or their means of production.

Gustavo Petro’s eldest son, Nicolas Fernando Petro Burgos (Nicolas Petro), is considered to be his political heir. He has served as Gustavo Petro’s campaign manager in Barranquilla. In 2023, Nicolas Petro was arrested in Colombia for money laundering and illicit enrichment over allegations that he funneled money received from drug traffickers into Gustavo Petro’s “total peace” efforts and election campaign. Nicolas Petro later admitted to receiving dirty money from a person formerly involved in narcotics trafficking and son of a contractor on trial for financing paramilitaries.

First Lady Veronica del Socorro Alcocer Garcia was once unconstitutionally appointed by Gustavo Petro to serve as an ambassador “on a special mission.” A Colombian court later annulled the appointment, deciding that the appointment violated Article 126 of the Colombian Constitution, which prohibits the Colombian president from appointing his spouse or permanent partner.

Armando Alberto Benedetti Villaneda (Armando Benedetti) has been appointed to multiple high-ranking positions within the Colombian government by Gustavo Petro. In 2023, audio recordings of Armando Benedetti were leaked in which he discusses his involvement in campaign financing and obtaining votes for Gustavo Petro. Most recently, in February 2025, Gustavo Petro named Armando Benedetti as Colombia’s Minister of the Interior.

Colombian Peace Talks

One of the recent narco smuggling vessels targeted by the US military for lethal strikes was tied to the ELN rebel group. 

The strikes have ramped up from one every few weeks when they first began last month to three this week, killing a total of at least 43 people. Two of the most recent strikes were carried out in the eastern Pacific Ocean, expanding the area where the military has launched attacks and shifting to where much of the cocaine is smuggled from the world’s largest producers, including Colombia.

Last week, Petro proposed resuming peace talks with the National Liberation Army (ELN), almost 10 months after declaring war on the rebel group over bloodshed in Colombia’s northeastern Catatumbo region.

The president’s announcement comes weeks after Pablo Beltrán, the head of the ELN, suggested resuming peace talks with the government which have been suspended since January.

Petro’s proposal follows a disappointing year for his ‘total peace’ plan, which has unsuccessfully attempted to strike peace deals with the country’s various armed groups.

“It is time to reinitiate contact with the ELN,” wrote Petro in an X post, adding, “I am responding to Mr. Pablo Beltrán. Try peace in Colombia.”

The ELN is one of Colombia’s oldest non-state armed groups, founded in 1964 as a Marxist insurgency. Today, it controls most of the country’s border with Venezuela and is involved in cocaine trafficking and other illicit economies.

Petro signed a ceasefire deal with the ELN in June 2023 that lasted until August 2024 but formally severed talks with the group in January 2025 after clashes between the ELN and a dissident faction of the demobilized FARC displaced some 80,000 people.

The Clan del Golfo also requested to be involved in upcoming peace talks to be held in Qatar.

Petro's Guerrilla Past

Opponents of then Colombian presidential candidate Gustavo Petro dismissed the leftist candidate for having been an M-19 guerrilla, which sound a lot more radical than it was.

Unlike the traditional guerrilla groups FARC and ELN, the M-19 was founded on democratic rather than communist principles.

The M-19 didn’t seek to overthrow the Colombian state like the communists, but to force the government to make the country’s 19th century conservative semi-democratic system, for example by separating church and state.

The group’s name, “the April 19 Movement,” refers to the 1970 election of President Misael Pastrana, the father of former President Andres Pastrana.

Followers of former dictator Gustavo Rojas Pinilla, who lost the 1970 elections, were convinced that the election results had been manipulated. The violent death of Chilean President Salvador Allende led many leftists and democrats to believe that democratic means were useless in Latin America’s violent politics.

Petro was recruited in 1977, when the current presidential candidate was 17 and studying economy at the Universidad Externado in Bogota.

“He was skinny, skiiinnyyyy, extremely delicately built,” one of the friends he made at M-19, Pacho Paz, told newspaper El Espectador in 2010.

Petro was given the nom-de-guerre “Aureliano” after a character in one of his favorite books, “One Hundreds Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

The M-19 at the time was an urban guerrilla group. Many of its members lived with their parents or families. Petro attended university during the day and in the evening was one of the group’s ideologues.

“Not all guerrillas fired guns. There were some who had the task of doing community work and propaganda; that was Gustavo,” according to Paz.

A year after Petro joined the M-19, the group dealt a devastating blow to the Colombian military when it dug a tunnel and stole 5,000 arms from the Canton Norte headquarters in Bogota without firing one shot.

The group embarrassed authorities again in 1980 when it hijacked the Dominican embassy and held multiple ambassadors hostage to demand the release of 320 alleged guerrillas.

Four years after joining the guerrilla group, in 1981, Petro was elected ombudsman of Zipaquira, the town where he lived with his parents. Three years later he was elected member of the city council.

Later in 1984, Petro and other members publicly announced that their M-19 membership.

“I did it in a demonstration that was one of the biggest in the history of the municipality. The entire square was filled. From then on my life changed. My youth was over,” Petro has said.

The authorities began a major manhunt and arrested the guerrilla on October 24, 1985. According to court documents, Petro was dressed as a woman to avoid recognition and found with guns, home-made explosives and propaganda material.

Palace of Justice Siege

Three weeks after Petro was thrown in jail, the M-19 carried out the most infamous and bloody attack in the group’s history, the seizing of the Palace of Justice in Bogota.

Less than 30 hours after the guerrillas entered the building to “call the president to trial,” the military attacked the building ruthlessly. By the end of the siege, all guerrillas and half the Supreme Court was dead.

“This was one of the most bitter moments in our lives,” Paz told El Espectador.

Petro was released in March 1987 and began formulating proposals to modernize the country’s 1886 constitution by the then-anti-democratic Conservative Party.

Then-President Virgilio Barco agreed to negotiate the M-19 democratization proposals and Petro demobilized with the rest of the group in March 1990.

The M-19’s participation in politics did not go without violence. One month after the group’s demobilization, former guerrilla leader and presidential candidate Carlos Pizarro was assassinated.

Colombia had its current constitution and a separation of Church and state a year later.

Sources OFAC, Colombia Report, Latin America Reports

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