A million dollars for anyone who captures Pablo Escobar's second-in-command 'Ivan Mordisco'

Néstor Gregorio Vera Fernández, also known as 'Iván Mordisco,' who has become Colombia's most wanted criminal in 2026, is the current leader of the Central General Staff (EMC), the main dissident group of the disbanded FARC organization. Due to a recent wave of severe terrorist violence led by him, Colombian President Gustavo Petro has directly compared him to Pablo Escobar, with the president calling him a "drug trafficker disguised as a revolutionary."

In just one weekend in April 2026, he launched over 30 attacks, including Colombia's deadliest bombing in decades. The Colombian government has now offered a massive reward of approximately one million dollars for his capture, and Mordisco is also considered the main obstacle to President Petro's "total peace" program.

Mordisco, who gains financial strength through drug trafficking, illegal mining, and extortion, commands between 3,200 and 4,000 fighters in about 10 departments of Colombia. His EMC organization also controls the routes for transporting cocaine to Brazil and Venezuela. Additionally, the organization faces numerous serious accusations, such as the forced recruitment of minors through social media like TikTok, and the assassination of social leaders, indigenous people, and former FARC fighters who accepted peace. Although the EMC organization presents itself as the ideological heir of FARC, using historical emblems and "revolutionary" narratives, authorities classify them as merely a criminal organization.

Born around 1974 in El Peñón, Mordisco joined the FARC organization in his youth in the late 1990s. Starting as a regular guerrilla fighter, he later distinguished himself as a skilled sniper and explosives expert, becoming the commander of the First Front (Frente 1), responsible for protecting coca crops and forced recruitment by 2012. Although he was arrested by anti-narcotics forces in 2015, he was later released under unclear circumstances. He was also the first FARC commander to reject the Havana peace agreement in June 2016. Subsequently, he remained with about 400 of his fighters as an armed group, laying the foundation for the current EMC. In 2022, after the death of his ally Miguel Botache in Venezuela, Mordisco became the full commander of the EMC.

The main reason Mordisco is called "Escobar's successor" is his ability to instill terror at both urban and rural levels. In 2025, a bombing at an air base in Cali killed 6 people and injured over 70. Between April 25 and 27, 2026, more than 30 attacks were carried out in the southwestern region targeting military bases, police stations, and highways using grenades, rifles, explosive-laden drones, and car bombs. The most tragic incident was a bomb attack targeting a passenger bus on the Popayán-Cali highway in Cauca department, which killed 21 civilians and injured 56. This series of attacks was launched approximately one month before the presidential election scheduled for May 2026, and Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez has called it a "war crime" and a "wave of terrorism." Accordingly, the president has ordered Mordisco to be "captured alive."

Mordisco has survived several attempts to assassinate him. In 2022, the government announced he had died in a bombing, but he later appeared in a video. Similarly, in March 2026, a bombing in the Vaupés region killed 6 people, including his partner "Lorena," but he is believed to have been injured and escaped. His only confirmed public appearance was in April 2023, where he arrived in a luxury jeep, dressed in a military uniform and carrying an Israeli rifle. As of April 2026, despite intensified government bombings and ground operations, Mordisco remains hidden in the Amazon rainforest, continuing to recruit members to his group and expand his power even under severe pressure.