CAPURGANA, Colombia – ‘Hey! Hey you! Alto! Stop!’ three Colombian cartel soldiers shouted at me and my translator as we ducked into a small shop and pretended not to hear their commands.
I’d come to Capurgana, a dusty seaside village on the northwest coast of Colombia to investigate international efforts to shut down one of the world’s most notorious human smuggling routes – the Darien Gap.
It’s a 70-mile stretch of dense jungle connecting South America and Panama through which 1.5 million migrants from 170 countries have passed from 2021 to August 2024.