Colombia Extradites FARC Dissident Leader to US on Drug Charges

Colombia has extradited a senior leader of a FARC dissident group to the United States to face drug trafficking charges, President Abelardo de la Espriella said on Friday.

Geovany Andres Rojas, better known as “Spider,” has been accused by U.S. prosecutors of drug trafficking and criminal conspiracy tied to alleged operations in Colombia and Ecuador dating back to 2017.

Rojas led the Border Commands faction of the National Coordinator of the Bolivarian Army (CNEB), a network that is one of several groups formed by former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters who rejected or later abandoned a 2016 peace accord with the Colombian government.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California issued the charges against Rojas in early 2025, around the same time Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office detained him in Bogotá, the country’s capital, after a round of talks between the government and CNEB. 

Rojas will be the first senior commander of an illegal armed group sent to the United States under conservative de la Espriella, who took office in August.

De la Espriella, a former lawyer, has reversed his predecessor Gustavo Petro’s approach of negotiating with armed groups. Since taking office, he has ended peace talks with illegal armed groups, including some FARC dissident factions, and ordered a military campaign to retake remote mountain and jungle territory.

Authorities say these armed groups finance themselves through cocaine trafficking, illegal mining and extortion.

Rojas’s extradition followed President Donald Trump’s announcement on Sept. 16 that the United States had removed Venezuela from its list of countries that had “failed demonstrably” to combat drug trafficking. Trump first imposed the “failed demonstrably” designation on Colombia in September 2025, during a public feud with Petro.

Days after de la Espriella took office, Colombia became the 19th country to join the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.

On Aug. 27, he announced the capture of Luis Saúl Pérez Nieto, described as a senior Tren de Aragua leader wanted for extortion, homicide, and arms and drug trafficking. The U.S. government designated Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization in 2025. 

According to de la Espriella, Pérez Nieto also served as a confidant of Héctor Guerrero Flores, founder and leader of Tren de Aragua. U.S. forces killed Flores in an airstrike in Venezuela in June.

“The message for transnational crime is clear: Colombia will not be a refuge or sanctuary for any criminal. We will pursue them, capture them, and bring them to justice, no matter where they come from,” de la Espriella said when Pérez Nieto was captured.

Ryan Morgan and Reuters contributed to this report.