Cocaine-Funded Gangs Shake Colombia Years After Peace Pact

BOGOTA, Colombia—Almost a decade ago, the most powerful rebel group Latin America had ever seen agreed to

lay down its weapons and end its fight to overthrow the Colombian state. The accord with Colombia’s government earned a Nobel Peace Prize for then-President Juan Manuel Santos.

Today, the once-fearsome Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, has turned to politics and farming. But it left a vacuum increasingly filled by armed gangs that have shaken Colombia with a violent, cocaine-fueled conflict raging across several provinces of the country where the government has little or no control.