Published On 6 May 20266 May 2026With snow-capped peaks tumbling towards the turquoise waters of the Caribbean, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta National Park is one of the jewels in Colombia’s tourism crown.But behind the picture-postcard views lies a more sinister reality.Armed groups are holding local businesses to ransom and terrorising Indigenous communities.The signing of a 2016 peace deal between the Colombian state and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) ended more than half a century of war and helped propel a country long associated with druglords and rebels onto the global tourism stage.Since then, thousands of visitors have poured into the Sierra Nevada each day, trekking through pristine jungle to white-sand beaches or climbing towards Colombia’s mountaintop Lost City, which predates Peru’s Machu Picchu.Few notice the men in camouflage watching from a distance.They are members of the Self-Defence Forces of the Sierra Nevada (ACSN), a group of former paramilitaries that controls cocaine trafficking routes in the region and is also involved in illegal gold mining.Extortion has become another lucrative business for the group. The “Conquistadores”, as ACSN members are often called, demand a cut of the earnings of hotels, tour bus companies and Indigenous communities, whose hand-woven hammocks and bags are snapped up by visitors.“We are afraid and anxious about the future,” said Atanasio Moscote, the governor of the Kogui Indigenous people, who live high up in the Sierra Nevada de Santa …
