The growth of the National Liberation Army or ELN, a sprawling guerilla force of 6,500 combatants shifting between Venezuela and Colombia, has hardly got any attention in the United States. Yet it’s just one of various explosive stories from the Colombia-Venezuela border, where spies, gangs, and insurgents are adjusting to the new political situation after U.S. special forces took out Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
Here I cut together video from a week reporting in Cúcuta and in the countryside north of the city, so you can see with your own eyes the dirt smuggling paths, border barrio of Venezuelan refugees, Colombian armored vehicles, contraband gasoline and more colorful scenes. It’s a CrashOut guerrilla podcast, but while it has a jagged edge style we go deeper than in the snappy cable news lives.
If you like to listen to pure audio of the adventure, then here it is below.
Copyright Ioan Grillo and CrashOut Media 2026
