A new failed operation against dissident leader Ivan Mordisco has sparked a political storm in Colombia. After it was confirmed that the target once again escaped the military cordon, President Gustavo Petro attributed the failure to the alleged buying off of commanders by illegal armed groups—an unproven accusation that immediately ignited controversy.
The source of the clash was not only the seriousness of the claim, but also the response from within the government itself. Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said there is no evidence that these organizations are bribing military commanders, distancing himself from the president and exposing tensions at the top of the executive branch amid an ongoing security debate.
Colombia row over Petro’s claims armed groups buy off military personnel
Petro’s remarks reflect mounting frustration. “Not finding Ivan Mordisco has only one name (…) they buy the commanders who are supposed to capture him; that’s how he escapes the bombings, but leaves his own to die. He is warned before every bombing,” the Colombian president wrote on April 4 in a controversial post on his X social media account.
In the same post, Gustavo Petro argued that criminal leaders are not the main problem in the fight against drug trafficking. “If there is no agreement for the U.S. to truly punish drug trafficking in any country, extradition becomes pointless; traffickers prefer to negotiate in Miami and New York rather than be captured in Colombia,” he wrote.
It is not the first time the president has suggested failures beyond operational issues in actions against armed groups, but this time he crossed a sensitive line by hinting at corruption in the military chain of command. The accusation, without public backing, raised the tone of the debate and triggered immediate reactions.
Political sectors and analysts warned of the risks of making such claims without evidence, in a context where trust in institutions is crucial. Suggesting that commanders may be bought off calls into question the integrity of the security forces—an especially sensitive issue in a country with a long history of armed conflict.
In contrast, Minister Sanchez opted for a message of restraint. “We have carried out a very rigorous analysis of the operations we have conducted against this criminal, alias Ivan Mordisco, and in none of them do we have evidence showing any leak by military commanders, the high command, or those directly leading the operation against this criminal,” he explained.
His refusal to back the president’s hypothesis sought to reduce the impact of the accusation, but also revealed a lack of alignment in the official narrative.
La lista OFAC ya no es un arma contra el narcotráfico, el narcotráfico se burla de ella, y se hospedan en Dubai, allí compran residencia pot unos 4.000 dólares y viven en medio del lujo.
La OFAC solo sirve para perseguir oposiciones políticas y domesticarlas en el mundo. Es un… https://t.co/gzpzWU5pIE
— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) April 4, 2026
The latest escape of Mordisco, a symbol of the failure of Petro’s peace policy
The backdrop to the controversy is the state’s repeated inability to capture or neutralize Ivan Mordisco. The dissident leader has become a top priority target who has nevertheless managed to evade military forces time and again, building an image of invulnerability.
Each failed operation raises questions about the effectiveness of intelligence and execution on the ground. Traditional explanations point to factors such as knowledge of the terrain, support from local networks, and constant mobility. However, the hypothesis of internal leaks raised by Petro introduces a more complex element that, so far, has not been proven.
The repetition of these escapes has elevated Mordisco’s profile. He is no longer just an insurgent leader, but a symbol of the state’s difficulty in closing the cycle of conflict in certain regions. His ability to escape at the last moment fuels a narrative of constant challenge to state authority.
Petro’s insistence on capturing Mordisco has a clear political dimension. The dissident leader represents one of the biggest obstacles to the government’s dialogue strategy, which is based on negotiating with armed actors as the cornerstone of its security policy.
Since the beginning of his term, the president has defended the need to open channels of dialogue with different illegal groups. However, not all have responded in the same way, and to date no successful agreement has been reached with any criminal structure.
In this context, Mordisco represents the most visible case of resistance to that policy—and its failure—having been the first to break the initial agreement reached with the state before fully engaging in negotiations. As such, Mordisco’s figure ceases to be just a military target and becomes a political symbol.
Total Peace, a project caught between rejection and reconfiguration
The Total Peace project has faced criticism since its inception in 2022. However, after nearly four years without any tangible achievement, it now faces broad rejection from much of society, beyond the political opposition seeking to capitalize on this failure in the May presidential elections.
None of the illegal armed groups that agreed to sit down for talks with the state has reached an agreement capable of escaping criticism of a peace policy that, in seeking to extend the 2016 agreement with the FARC, has instead exposed the nature of the current phase of the internal armed conflict: more criminal and less political.
The president’s statements against the military add another layer to a stalled reality that the next government—even if led by current continuity candidate Ivan Cepeda—will have to rethink.
Meanwhile, Ivan Mordisco remains at large, becoming the face of a problem that combines military, political, and strategic challenges. His repeated escapes highlight not only the state’s operational limitations, but also the tensions of a policy that seeks to balance negotiation and confrontation amid uncertain results.
“The results show that we have critically impacted this criminal structure. In the last operation, that close security ring was affected. We have also captured four brothers; we also neutralized a very close associate of alias Mordisco. The damage we have inflicted on this criminal, who in recent months has moved around 2,500 kilometers, despite the difficulties of capturing or locating him in the forest, has been significant,” the government’s top defense official said shortly before acknowledging that the criminal leader remains alive.
This individual, now a symbol both of the new phase of the Colombian conflict and of the failure of Petro’s peace policy, is the number one target who could improve the negative assessment analysts will make of one of the most sensitive aspects of this government’s policy, just four months before the end of its term.