On July 25, 2025, bursts of gunfire disrupted the usual calm in La Fría, a town in the Venezuelan state of Táchira, just a few kilometers from the border with Colombia. Citizens filmed a black truck carrying armed men, some in civilian clothes and others in Venezuelan military uniforms, shooting at another vehicle.
THE confrontation was unusual because the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN) maintains strict control over La Fría and much of the Táchira border with Colombia. Venezuelan authorities generally leave the group alone, suggesting the shooting may have been a case of mistaken identity.
*ThisThe article is the fourth in a investigation in five parts“Peace Never Had a Chance: The Colombian ELN in Venezuela,” analyzing the growth of the ELN in Venezuela and how this allowed the rebel group to project itself into Colombia. Read the full survey here.
Although authorities said they arrested six guerrillas, they have not been publicly identified. Security forces did not make any further comments on the matter. The governor of Táchira, Freddy Bernal, downplayed the incident: attributing it to a gang of car thieves.
The ELN has controlled La Fría for about six years, ever since it worked with Venezuelan security forces to expel Colombian paramilitary groups that previously dominated the region.
The presence of guerrillas and their consequences consolidation were made possible through a symbiotic relationship with the Venezuelan state, in a hybrid criminal governance model that is replicated all along the Colombian border.
The ELN's impunity in Táchira is the result of years of complicity and cooperation with local security forces and pro-government leaders. In many areas, the ELN has gained such deep social control that citizens view the group as an extension of the state – perhaps even more reliable than the government of President Nicolas Maduro, both socially and economically.
From rivals to comrades
The ELN's relationship with Bernal played a central role in consolidating its power in Táchira.
In the mid-2010s, right-wing Colombian paramilitary groups, notably the Rastrojosbegan attempting to violently assert control over Venezuelan border communities, aiming to control lucrative smuggling routes that ran through clandestine border routes known as trochas – whose traffic has become very important due to the closure of official border crossings in a context of breakdown in relations between Colombia and Venezuela.
At the time, Táchira was a bastion of political opposition to Maduro's government. In 2018, Maduro appointed Bernal, a former police officer and pro-government politician, to the post of “protector” of Táchira – a position created to place pro-government politicians as alternative authorities in opposition-dominated states. Bernal used his position to lead a campaign to displace the paramilitaries, finding a reliable ally in the ELN.
The alliance proved successful for Bernal, who officially became governor of Táchira in 2021. The ELN helped capture and maintain order in a once porous and chaotic border, while regulating the multiple criminal and informal economies that operate in the binational corridor. They could also have tipped the balance in Bernal's election as governor, limiting the opposition's room to maneuver and pushing voters to vote for Bernal.
With its conquest of Táchira, the ELN gained criminal hegemony over a significant portion of the northern border with Colombia and the main crossing point between the two nations. And that experience taught the group the importance of combining protection from Venezuelan authorities with strict social control, in order to maintain its grip on binational criminal economies, like smuggling and drug trafficking.
Hybrid and paramilitary state
The ELN's relations with the Venezuelan authorities are largely symbioticalthough sometimes complicated by communication failures or disobedience.
Official functions such as border and territory protection have been tacitly ceded to rebels, both in Táchira and in other states along the Colombian border, where InSight Crime has observed similar trends.
The ELN also assumed other state functions. Officials from four municipalities, interviewed by InSight Crime on condition of anonymity, said they were coordinating their activities with the guerrillas. Requests for machinery and fuel in times of shortage, for example, are common, as are requests to open roads in mountain villages, where government agencies struggle to reach.
The ELN also uses profits from its illicit activities to acquire political capital.
“They send (money) for painting, for gifts, for pruning, for cutting. I mean, all these needs that public institutions have,” a municipal official from Táchira told InSight Crime.
The ELN has imposed a set of rules in border towns that residents say have been effective in maintaining order and security, and which authorities sometimes fail to enforce. For example, guerrillas usually punish suspected thieves harshly, with some even disappearing.
SEE ALSO: Rebels and paramilitaries: Colombian guerrillas in Venezuela
They also punish unacceptable public behavior, such as fighting, by requiring perpetrators to perform community service, such as cleaning streets and roads. In addition, they perform parallel judicial functions, resolving personal disputes and collecting unpaid debts.
Some residents support the strict social codes enforced by the ELN. A La Fría trader told InSight Crime he was grateful to the guerrillas for improving abandoned areas of the city, cleaning the streets and reducing common crime.
“We are here to fight, to survive and we have learned to live with these things that are not normal,” he said.
On several occasions, residents reported that the security forces themselves redirected their complaints to the ELN, arguing that the guerrillas were better than them at resolving these conflicts.
“There are people who feel safer with them (the ELN) than with the police force,” a former political leader at the border told InSight Crime.
The transformation of the trochas
The ELN's hard-won control over the clandestine Táchira border crossings bore fruit until recent years, when trochas became less lucrative due to the reopening of official entry points in September 2022, after seven years of restrictions.
However, on the Venezuelan side, the ELN's deep infiltration into politics and economics has allowed it to adapt its methods to the changing landscape. The guerrillas began extorting legal import-export businesses, according to politicians and San Antonio del Táchira residents interviewed by InSight Crime.
The ELN “invoices in a very clandestine manner, it is present in warehouses,” comments a resident familiar with the customs sector. “I understand that it was 100,000 Colombian pesos ($25) per truck, and if you add up the number of people crossing daily or monthly, it is an amount that can be significant.”
During the first quarter of 2025, 4,553 cargo vehicles crossed the bridges, according to official figures. If even a small percentage of trucks paid this fee, the ELN could earn several thousand dollars per month from extortion.
At the same time, the ELN continues to regulate the reduction of smuggling through trochas and the passage of those who, due to lack of papers or movement of illegal goods, prefer to avoid legal crossings. Many companies importing Colombian products into Venezuela, seeking to avoid paying customs duties, pass their trucks through the trochas and pay the guerrillas for passage. However, directly paying corrupt Venezuelan officials at official crossing points could be more economical.
Binational group
The ELN's growing influence in Venezuela's border communities means the Colombian-born guerrilla is increasingly recruiting Venezuelan nationals as well as Colombians.
The recruitment of Venezuelans is neither new nor unique to Táchira. Other states, including Apure and Zulia, have also seen recruitment by the ELN, which offers good salaries, clothes, cell phones and even training.
Many young men and women in rural areas face great economic vulnerability. In 2024, the Venezuelan Financial Observatory estimated that 86% of Venezuelan households lived in poverty. In this context, the promises made by the insurgent group are particularly attractive.
SEE ALSO: Venezuela, Colombia and the ELN at the crossroads of peace
The pool of candidates available in Venezuela could have a significant impact on the ELN's operations in Colombia.
Colombian Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez said in an interview with Caracol in August, nearly 40 percent of ELN members in Colombia's Catatumbo region are foreigners, mostly Venezuelans.
The growing share of Venezuelans among ELN members on both sides of the border, combined with its growing strength on Venezuelan soil, further positions the group as a binational criminal group.
“For me, the ELN today is a Colombian-Venezuelan organization,” said Luis Eduardo Celis, one of the oldest and most trusted analysts of the ELN in Colombia.
With a strong presence in Venezuela, supported not only by authorities at all levels but also protected by local communities, the ELN has a solid base on which to stand, take refuge and thrive, regardless of the changes or persecution it may face from the Colombian side. The binational nature of the Colombian rebel group is now irreversibly altering the security dynamic. On both sides of the border.
