From Bogotá to Darfur: How Phone Data Exposed a Mercenary Pipeline Fueling Sudan's War

A phone tracked from Medellín to Abu Dhabi to the besieged city of el-Fasher. Wi-Fi networks named "ANTIAEREO," "DRONES," and "LOBOS DEL DISIERTO." A retired Colombian colonel running recruitment from Dubai. And a trail of shell companies spanning three continents, funneling millions of dollars to former soldiers fighting in a war most of them did not sign up for.

An investigation published in April 2026 by the Conflict Insights Group (CIG), a security analysis organization, has produced the most granular evidence yet of how Colombian mercenaries were recruited, transported, and deployed to fight alongside Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) — the paramilitary group that the US State Department has accused of genocide [1][2]. The report's findings, built on commercial phone tracking data, flight records, and satellite imagery, trace a pipeline that connects Latin American veterans to one of the world's most brutal conflicts.

The Phone Tracking: What It Found and How It Worked

CIG tracked more than 50 mobile phones in Sudan between April 2025 and January 2026 whose operators were identified as Colombian mercenaries [1]. The methodology relied on commercially available advertising technology — the same infrastructure that serves targeted ads based on a user's location. When a phone's apps broadcast location data to advertising networks, that data is aggregated by commercial brokers and made available for purchase. CIG used this data, cross-referenced with flight-tracking records, satellite imagery, social media videos, and open-source reporting, to reconstruct the movements of individual devices [1].

One phone was followed from Colombia to Abu Dhabi's Zayed International Airport, then to a UAE military training facility in Ghayathi, where CIG also identified four other devices configured to Spanish-language settings [1]. Two of those phones subsequently traveled to Sudan's South Darfur state. One logged into wi-fi networks in Nyala — the de facto RSF capital — with network names including "ANTIAEREO" (anti-aircraft in Spanish) and "AirDefense" [1]. Another device traveled from Colombia to Nyala and then to el-Fasher during the RSF's October 2025 takeover of the city, connecting to a network named "ATACADOR" ("attacker" in Spanish) [3]. A third device connected to networks named "DRONES" and "LOBOS DEL DISIERTO" (Desert Wolves) [3].

CIG's director stated that "this is the first research where we can prove UAE involvement with certainty," citing the direct digital trail from a UAE military base to RSF-controlled combat zones [1].

Methodology Limitations

Commercial location data carries documented limitations. Location accuracy varies from a few meters (GPS-derived) to several hundred meters (cell-tower triangulation), and the data reflects where a device was — not necessarily what its user was doing [4]. There is no publicly available error-rate analysis specific to CIG's methodology. The organization has not disclosed who funded the report, and the raw data has not been independently verified by a third party, though CIG states it cross-referenced phone data against multiple other intelligence streams [1].

A credible alternative explanation — that the tracked Colombians were serving in non-combat advisory roles — is not conclusively ruled out by location data alone. However, the wi-fi network names, the presence of devices at drone-launch sites, and US Treasury findings describing the recruits as "infantry, artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators, and instructors" make a purely advisory characterization difficult to sustain [5].

The Desert Wolves: Structure, Pay, and Recruitment

The Colombian fighters in Sudan operate primarily as a unit called the Desert Wolves — a battalion of roughly 300 to 400 retired Colombian military personnel organized into four companies [6][7]. They have been present in Sudan since at least September 2024, participating in battles across Khartoum, Omdurman, Kordofan, and el-Fasher [5].

Source: AFP, CIG, US Treasury

Data as of Apr 22, 2026CSV

Recruitment was brokered through a layered corporate structure spanning at least four countries. At the center sits Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, a retired Colombian colonel and dual Colombian-Italian national based in the UAE, who the US Treasury describes as playing "a central role in recruiting and deploying former Colombian military personnel to Sudan" [5]. Quijano's wife, Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, owns and manages the Bogotá-based recruitment firm International Services Agency (A4SI), which advertised positions for "drone operators, snipers, and translators" through its website, group chats, and in-person town halls [5].

The Money Trail

Salary payments flow through a Panama-registered company called Global Staffing S.A. (now operating as Talent Bridge S.A.), which the Treasury describes as "minimizing legal exposure" between A4SI and the hiring entity [5]. A second Bogotá firm, Maine Global Corp, managed by Mateo Andres Duque Botero — a Colombian-Spanish dual national with corporate interests in Colombia, the US, and the UK — processed payroll and fund disbursement [5]. A fourth entity, Comercializadora San Bendito, facilitated wire transfers. The Treasury estimated that US-based firms associated with Duque processed "millions of US dollars" in wire transfers with Maine Global Corp and Global Staffing during 2024 and 2025 [5].

Individual mercenaries were reportedly paid between $2,500 and $3,000 per month, with promises of $10,000 bonuses upon completing six-month contracts [6]. By Colombian standards, this is significant — roughly five to eight times the country's minimum wage. But many recruits say they were misled. According to reporting by AFP and the Colombian investigative outlet La Silla Vacía, fighters were initially told they would guard Emirati oil facilities or train troops, only to find themselves on the front lines of a civil war [7][8].

Source: Compiled from NYT, AFP, Treasury Dept reports

Data as of Apr 22, 2026CSV

At least two deployment routes have been identified: one through Benghazi, Libya, where contractors reportedly confiscated passports to prevent desertion; and another through Spain to Ethiopia, then to the Somali port of Bosaso before flying to Chad's capital, N'Djamena [7].

The UAE Connection

The question of UAE state involvement sits at the center of this story. The Emirates has consistently denied supporting the RSF, but the evidence of institutional links continues to accumulate.

In November 2025, The Sentry — a Washington-based investigative group co-founded by actor George Clooney and human rights activist John Prendergast — published corporate records showing that Ahmed Mohamed Al Humairi, the secretary general of the UAE's Presidential Court and one of the country's most senior bureaucrats, founded and once fully owned Global Security Services Group (GSSG), the Emirati company that contracted with A4SI to supply Colombian fighters to the RSF [9]. Al Humairi divested his shares before the Sudan deployment became public, but The Sentry found he remains closely linked to GSSG's current CEO [9].

GSSG contracted with A4SI to supply "hundreds of former soldiers," according to leaked documents obtained by La Silla Vacía [9]. The CIG phone tracking data showed devices transiting through a UAE military facility in Ghayathi before arriving in Sudan — a finding that, if accurate, implicates Emirati military infrastructure in the logistics chain [1].

The US has sanctioned the Colombian recruitment network twice — in December 2025 and again in April 2026 — but neither round of sanctions named any UAE nationals or entities [5][10]. Middle East Eye reported that the omission drew criticism from human rights groups who argue the US is unwilling to confront a major arms customer and strategic partner [10].

The War They Entered

Sudan's civil war, which began in April 2023 as a power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF, has produced a humanitarian catastrophe. Over 150,000 people have been killed, more than 14 million have been displaced internally, and 2.5 million Sudanese have fled the country as refugees [11][12]. Famine conditions have emerged in multiple conflict-affected areas [11].

Source: UNHCR Population Data

Data as of Dec 31, 2025CSV

The RSF has been implicated in systematic atrocities. In September 2025, the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Sudan reported that RSF forces committed crimes against humanity including "murder, torture, enslavement, rape, sexual slavery, sexual violence, forced displacement and persecution on ethnic, gender and political grounds" [11]. In January 2025, the US State Department determined that RSF members and allied militias committed genocide [12]. Amnesty International called for war crimes investigations into the RSF's December 2025 attack on Zamzam displacement camp in North Darfur [13].

The fall of el-Fasher in October 2025, after an 18-month siege, was accompanied by mass killings of civilians and ethnically targeted violence [3]. Colombian mercenary phone signals were present in the city during this period [1]. UN-commissioned experts described the attack as bearing "the hallmarks of genocide," with at least 6,000 people killed in a three-day span [11].

The presence of Colombian fighters during these events raises questions of legal liability. Under international humanitarian law, individuals who participate in armed conflict can bear personal criminal responsibility for war crimes committed in operations they supported, regardless of nationality. Establishing command responsibility for intermediaries or home states requires demonstrating that they knew or should have known about the crimes and failed to prevent them — an evidentiary threshold that is high but not insurmountable, particularly given the volume of public reporting on RSF atrocities [14].

Colombia's Response: A New Law, Limited Enforcement

Colombian President Gustavo Petro pledged action after AFP reporting revealed that some Colombian mercenaries were training child soldiers for the RSF [15]. In early 2026, Colombia ratified the 1989 International Convention Against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries — a step that UN experts praised as "essential" for protecting human rights and upholding international obligations [16].

Before this ratification, Colombian law did not explicitly criminalize mercenary activity. The Colombian Penal Code addresses certain related offenses — unauthorized military service, recruitment for foreign forces — but enforcement has been minimal. No returned mercenary has been publicly prosecuted in Colombia for fighting in Sudan [15][16]. Colombia's congress had begun discussing a bill to criminalize mercenary recruitment in late 2024, but the legislation took over a year to advance [17].

An estimated 80 mercenaries have returned to Colombia from Sudan [8]. At least 40 Colombians were killed in August 2025 when Sudan's air force destroyed a UAE aircraft at a Darfur airport controlled by the RSF [18]. Three Colombian drone operators were among the first confirmed casualties, though their bodies have not been repatriated [8]. The secretive nature of the recruitment network has complicated repatriation efforts for the families of the dead.

International Accountability: A System Under Strain

Multiple international mechanisms exist to address the use of foreign fighters in Sudan. None has produced meaningful deterrence.

The ICC prosecutor announced in July 2023 that the office was investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur since the outbreak of the current conflict [14]. Middle East Eye reported that the ICC could investigate UAE nationals, including senior officials, if credible evidence emerges that they aided or abetted RSF crimes [14]. But ICC investigations move slowly, and the court's jurisdiction in Sudan derives from a 2005 UN Security Council referral — a referral that has not been updated to specifically address the current conflict's foreign fighter dimension.

The UN Panel of Experts on Sudan had its mandate extended through March 2026, but has been functionally paralyzed. Although the Secretary-General proposed five experts in late February 2025, some Security Council members placed holds on the appointments, leaving the Panel unable to carry out its work — including submission of an interim report due in August 2025 [19]. The Panel's April 2025 final report "did not conclusively tie specific consignments to Emirati state actors," noting that investigations into re-exports and flight manifests were ongoing [19].

The US has been the most active enforcement actor, imposing targeted sanctions on eight individuals and entities across two rounds [5][10]. But sanctions targeting Colombian middlemen while leaving Emirati principals untouched invite the criticism that enforcement is selective. Over 850 foreign nationals — not only Colombians but fighters from Chad, Libya, and other countries — are reportedly fighting alongside the RSF, according to Sudanese military sources [20].

A Decade-Long Pattern

The Sudan deployment is not an isolated case. Colombian mercenaries have been a recurring feature of UAE-linked military operations for more than a decade. In 2015, The New York Times reported that the UAE had deployed approximately 450 Colombian fighters to Yemen to fight Houthi rebels, recruited through a private army assembled at Zayed Military City in Abu Dhabi [21]. Colombians were preferred because of their counterinsurgency experience from decades of fighting the FARC and because they could be hired for roughly $3,300 per month — a fraction of what equivalent American contractors would cost [21].

Colombian fighters have also appeared in Libya, where various factions have recruited Latin American veterans, and in Haiti, where former Colombian soldiers were implicated in the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse [22]. The underlying conditions that drive recruitment — a large pool of trained veterans in a country with limited economic opportunities for former soldiers, combined with weak legal prohibitions on mercenary activity — have persisted across all of these deployments.

Colombia's ratification of the anti-mercenary convention in 2026 represents a legal milestone, but enforcement capacity remains untested [16]. The recruitment networks have proven adaptable: when one corporate front is sanctioned, payment routing shifts to new entities, and recruitment moves to encrypted messaging platforms beyond the reach of traditional monitoring [5][7].

What Remains Unknown

Several questions remain unresolved. CIG has not disclosed its funding sources or submitted its phone tracking data for independent verification, making it difficult to assess the full reliability of the findings — though the data aligns with prior reporting from AFP, The Sentry, and the US Treasury [1][9][5]. The precise number of Colombian casualties is unknown; estimates range from dozens to over 100, but the secretive nature of the operation and the difficulty of obtaining information from active conflict zones make accurate counts impossible [8][18].

Whether the Colombian mercenaries participated directly in atrocities — as opposed to providing technical support to RSF units that committed them — is a distinction with legal significance that current evidence does not definitively resolve. And the broader question of whether international enforcement mechanisms can adapt quickly enough to deter mercenary recruitment in active conflicts remains, for now, unanswered.