Editor’s Note
This report, based on a confidential intelligence document, details the rise of a powerful new generation of cocaine traffickers. Operating globally from hubs like Dubai, their defining characteristic is discretion—making them a more elusive, and perhaps more dangerous, criminal threat.
Colombian intelligence services have recently shed more light on a criminal group that has operated in the shadows. According to a secret report obtained by EL PAÍS, the so-called “New Drug Trafficking Board” (NJN) is described as a powerful organization, the heir to a former cartel considered the largest cocaine exporter in Colombian history. The network has taken root in Dubai, Mexico, Turkey, and Spain. Its leaders, unlike the old drug traffickers, have always been discreet and prefer to be seen as executives rather than gangsters. The dossier calls them “invisible narcos.”
The report from the National Intelligence Directorate provides a snapshot of an organization that collapsed with the arrest and extradition of its leaders 15 years ago and has been resurrected by adapting to changing times. It has evolved from the era of Pablo Escobar in the 1980s to drug lords directly involved in “various political, economic, and social sectors” and operating legal and illegal businesses around the world.
The organization is not as hierarchical as the old cartels and is reportedly led by five “strategic” leaders, including Julio Lozano Pirateque. This former drug trafficker, linked to emerald mining since childhood, has assured Colombian authorities that he is disconnected from his former businesses and has denied any attempt to assassinate the Colombian president, according to intelligence sources.
