The Pachencas, also known as the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra (Autodefensas Conquistadores de la Sierra), are an armed group that emerged following the demobilization of paramilitary forces led by Hernán Giraldo along Colombia’s Caribbean Coast.
Since that time, the Pachencas have managed to consolidate their power in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, where they control drug trafficking corridors and run extensive extortion rackets. Since late 2022, the group has been involved in peace talks with the Colombian government.
History
The Pachencas emerged from the Tayrona Resistance Bloc (Bloque Resistencia Tayrona – BRT) of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC), which was commanded by Hernán Giraldo Serna, alias “El Patrón.”
In 2004, Giraldo decided to create the Oficina del Caribe, or Caribbean Office, which was dedicated to regulating drug trafficking operations in the eastern Caribbean coast region.
The BRT demobilized in February 2006, and in 2008, Giraldo was extradited to the United States. However, he left behind an extensive network of sons, brothers, and nephews, which continued to run criminal operations under the banner of the Oficina del Caribe, also known as the Giraldos.
In 2012, the group entered into a dispute over drug trafficking territories with the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC). Skirmishes broke out between the Gaitanistas and the Giraldo clan, leading to more than 150 deaths in just a few months, according to media reports from the time.
The conflict began to die down after a former AGC lieutenant, Jesús María Aguirre Gallego, alias “Chucho Mercancía” or “Chucho Pachenca,” assumed leadership of the Giraldo clan in 2013.
Under “Chucho Mercancía,” the Gaitanistas and the Pachenca became allies, working together to move drugs from the northern part of the country. It was also at that point that the group assumed the name the Pachencas.
Despite a calm that lasted for several years, by the end of the decade, the Pachencas’ position was weakened by internal divisions and blows by public security forces. The first was the May 2019 arrest of alias “Flash,” the group’s second in command. Just a month later, Chucho Mercancía was killed by security forces, apparently betrayed by someone within his inner circle.
Following the death of Mercancía, Hernán Giraldo’s nephew, Deimer Patiño Giraldo, alias “80,” assumed leadership of the group. The new leadership led to a new name: the Conquering Self-Defense Forces of the Sierra. It also led to renewed tensions with the AGC, and once again, the two sides began to dispute key drug trafficking areas in the Caribbean.
However, just one year later, 80 was killed during a police operation. Police identified several possible successors, most prominent among them the Castillo brothers, Fredy Castillo, alias “Pinocho,” and Carmen Evelio Castillo Carrillo, alias “Muñeca.”
In January 2021, Hernán Giraldo returned to Colombia after serving a 12-year prison sentence on drug trafficking charges in the United States. However, he soon found himself back behind bars after he was charged with sexually abusing minors.
In late 2022, the Pachencas requested to be included in Colombian President Gustavo Petro’s flagship “Total Peace” plans, which called for talks with any armed groups willing to negotiate with the government. When the government offered a six-month bilateral ceasefire with groups participating in talks in January 2023, the Pachenca agreed to participate.
However, negotiations did not advance beyond preliminary informal talks, and when the ceasefire agreement expired in June 2023, the government ignored the Pachenca’s appeals to renew it. And even as they continued to make public calls for peace, the Pachencas also continued their violent conflict with the Gaitanistas.
Leadership
Since its formation, the leadership of the Pachencas has been connected to Hernán Giraldo and his extensive family network. However, Giraldo has denied maintaining links to the group, and it is unclear how much influence Giraldo himself has had on the group’s day-to-day operations since his extradition to the United States.
Some of the group’s leaders, such as 80, were direct relations of Giraldo, while others, such as Chucho Mercancía, began their criminal careers in groups under Giraldo’s command.
The man widely reported to currently be the group’s top leader, Pinocho, is a former BRT paramilitary who, while not related to Giraldo, has referred to him as a father figure.
Pinocho was previously extradited to the United States to face drug trafficking charges. After serving his sentence, he was deported back to Colombia. However, in 2022, he was arrested in Spain and extradited to Colombia to face new charges of murder and criminal conspiracy. In June 2023, he was released after a controversial judicial ruling. While the ruling was later overturned, he remains at large.
Pinocho has long denied ties to the Pachencas, presenting himself as a businessman and community leader who has paid for his criminal past. When both he and Giraldo were named as two of the group’s representatives in peace talks, both claimed they were chosen not as Pachencas leaders but as representatives of the local communities.
Allies and Enemies
The Gaitanistas have been both one of the Pachencas’ main allies and their bitterest enemies at different times. While they clashed in the beginning, the Pachencas later spent several years as one of the Gaitanistas’ main operators handling drug shipments in northern Colombia.
Since 2021, the two groups have been fighting a brutal war for control of drug trafficking in the northern departments of Magdalena, La Guajira, and Cesar. The fighting has been at its fiercest around the drug trafficking corridors in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range, where in 2022 alone it displaced over 1,000 people, according to media coverage of the conflict.
The Pachencas have also formed alliances with smaller drug trafficking networks. Among these was the network led by Elkin Javier López, alias “La Silla,” which granted the Pachenca influence over trafficking through the port of Santa Marta. However, “La Silla” later started to collaborate with the AGC.
Likewise, the Pachencas have formed ties with small gangs of hitmen, particularly in the urban areas where they have a presence.
Geography
The Pachencas currently have an estimated 250 fighters stationed around the eastern Caribbean coast, according to security forces’ intelligence reports seen by Reuters.
The Pachencas’ main enclave is in the Sierra Nevada region around the town of Santa Marta, but its influence extends toward the Venezuelan border in the department of La Guajira, and the north of Cesar. In total, in 2022, the group maintained some kind of presence in 11 municipalities in the departments of Magdalena, La Guajira, Cesar, and Atlántico, according to Colombian conflict monitoring group Indepaz.
This region is a strategic territory as it connects drug-producing enclaves, like Catatumbo, in the Norte de Santander department, to sea routes via different rivers, ports, and coastal dispatch points, allowing the collection, transport, and shipment of drugs through the Caribbean.
The Pachencas’ control over the region has also allowed them to establish extensive extortion networks. The group collects regular payments from merchants and residents in these areas, especially from the tourism sector, which has boomed along the beaches surrounding the Sierra Nevada. It also profits from land sales in the region by pressuring landowners to sell their properties and give the Pachenca a percentage of the sale. Should a landowner refuse, the group takes over the property, forcibly displacing the owner, and then directly sells the parcel of land.
The group has also been linked to the murder of social and community leaders in the Sierra Nevada. One of the most well-known cases is that of the homicide of the environmental leader Alejandro Llinás, who, in the days before his death in 2020, denounced illegal tolls that the Pachencas had set up to regulate tourists’ access to areas surrounding the Tayrona National Park.
Perspectives
Since their formation, the Pachencas have repeatedly demonstrated their resilience and capacity to recover from setbacks. This largely stems from their historical presence in the Sierra Nevada and the power that the Giraldo clan has in these territories. More than three decades of uninterrupted influence by the Giraldo family and their associates has created social, family, and community networks that have left the group firmly entrenched and able to resist the assaults of both the security forces and criminal rivals such as the Gaitanistas.
The group’s persistent efforts to maintain negotiations with the Colombian government suggest it may be willing to cut a deal. While such an agreement would be unlikely to have a long-term impact on drug trafficking in the region, it could break the stranglehold of the Giraldo clan if all its leading members participate. However, the lack of concrete progress in talks suggests, for the time being, this remains a distant prospect.