President Gustavo Petro is confronting explosive accusations of treason and complicity after a Noticias Caracol investigative report revealed alleged channels of communication and the transfer of highly classified military intelligence from the Armed Forces to FARC dissidents led by alias Calarcá. The report broadcast on Sunday has plunged the leftist administration into political turmoil and prompted immediate demands for congressional and judicial action.
Caracol’s year-long investigation is grounded in over 100 digital files from seized computers, cellphones, and encrypted chats, as well as damning testimony from Calarcá himself. According to the news outlet, the documents contain references to sensitive military information, including operational details and warnings about troop movements, that dissident commanders allegedly received from contacts inside state institutions. Noticias Caracol also included the video testimony from Calarcá who described President Petro as an “ally.”
The broadcast identified two senior figures repeatedly named in the seized material: General Juan Miguel Huertas, head of the Army’s personnel command, and Wilmar Mejía, a senior official of the National Intelligence Directorate (DNI). General Huertas was reinstated by President Petro in July this year, and Mejía, is a former member of the M-19 guerrilla. According to Caracol, the dissident files portray those officials as conduits through which intelligence moved from the state to the armed group. The report further alleges that, on multiple occasions, official vehicles were used to transport members of the dissident organization away from military pressure.
Caracol reported that the Fiscalía General de la Nación has had custody of the seized technical evidence since July 2024, after a convoy carrying seven dissident members, including Calarcá himself, was detained at a military check-point near Medellín, Antioquia. The convoy was being escorted by personnel from the National Protection Unit (UNP) and was carrying a chache of weapons, cash as well as an under-age combatant. Days after the incident, President Petro named Calarcá a “peace envoy” and secured his release. Despite the material that became part of an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office into collusion between the UNP and FARC dissidents, Caracol claims, the Fiscalía has not initiatated any judicial actions prior to Sunday’s broadcast.
Noticias Caracol also tied Calarcá’s structure to high-impact attacks against the Colombian state. The dissident commander is identified by investigators as the mastermind behind the downing of a U.S-manufactured ‘Black Hawk’ helicopter in Amalfi, Antioquia, on October 21. The attack with an improvised drone resulted in 13 members of the National Police killed, and marked one of the most serious blows against counter-narcotics operations in the department. According to Caracol, the internal files seized from the guerrilla include references to preparations and communications surrounding the assault.
The dissident FARC commander is also considered one of the intellectual authors behind the June 7 assassination of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay, attack that shook the national political landscape and remains under investigation.
The investigation further highlights that communications between Calarcá and goverment officials referenced plans to create front companies modeled after the Convivir self-defense groups, and document the visit of a Chinese businessman to guerrilla camps in Catatumbo to discuss weapons fabrication and illegal gold-mining ventures. Caracol presented these elements as part of the dissidents’ own internal operational planning.
The revelations have been widely framed as proof of a deep institutional failures and evidence of a political strategy that has benefited the expansion of illegal armed groups. Opposition leaders claim that the files show deep state-level penetration by dissidents and security breaches that have put the lives of Colombia’s soldiers and police at extreme risk.
Within hours of the report, public condemnations were immediate and forceful. Former FARC hostage and presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt issued a statement demanding urgent action: “Congress must prosecute Petro now. Treason against the homeland is the greatest crime of a president. The congressmen are prevaricating by not doing so. The Supreme Court of Justice must act now. Our democracy is in maximum danger. Our army must refrain from obeying the criminals who have taken over the presidency and the Attorney General’s Office. Petro must leave now.”
Senator María Fernanda Cabal of the Centro Democrático party announced she would file a formal complaint with the House Accusations Committee. “Gustavo Petro must be held accountable before the justice system. I will file a formal complaint with the House Accusations Committee so that it investigates the alleged support from the FARC for his presidential campaign, revealed by Noticias Caracol, as well as the infiltration by alias ‘Calarcá’ into the Military Forces and the DNI,” she said.
President Petro — along with other senior government officials implicated in the scandal, including Vice President Francia Márquez — has not issued an official statement responding to Caracol’s core claims: that dissident commanders received classified military intelligence; that state resources and official vehicles were used to assist dissident mobility; and that high-level officials were named in internal dissident files as intermediaries.
As judicial authorities face growing pressure to respond, and Congress confronts calls to open formal proceedings against President Petro, the nation is entering what analysts describe as one of the most serious confrontations between civilian authority and the military-intelligence establishment in decades. The fallout from Caracol’s disclosures is widening rapidly, and for now, Petro’s silence can only cement the government’s complicity with illegal armed groups financed by drug trafficking. And proof that the U.S administration of President Donald Trump claims to have by adding Petro and close family members to the so-called ‘Clinton List’.
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