Black Eagles

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Black Eagles" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2012) (Learn how and when to remove this message) This article needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information. (March 2016) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Spanish. (February 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Spanish article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 1,006 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Spanish Wikipedia article at [[:es:Águilas Negras]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|es|Águilas Negras}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Black Eagles
Águilas Negras
Leaders	Vicente Castaño (disappeared)
Dates of operation	2006–2011
Ideology	Anti-communism Counter-insurgency
Political position	Right-wing to far-right
Battles and wars	Colombian Armed Conflict
Preceded by AUC

Black Eagles (Spanish: Águilas Negras) was a term describing a series of Colombian drug trafficking, right-wing, counter-revolutionary, paramilitary organizations made up of new and preexisting paramilitary forces, that emerged from the failures of the demobilization process between 2004 and 2006, which aimed to disarm the United Self-Defense Units of Colombia (AUC).

The Black Eagles were first considered to be a third generation of paramilitary groups, but Colombian military reports suggest they were intermediaries in the drug business between the guerrilla and drug cartels outside Colombia.^[1] As of 2007, they were reported to be active in the city of Barrancabermeja.^[2] According to Fundación Paz y Reconciliación, Black Eagles ceased to exist around 2011.^[3] Since then, there is no evidence of an armed structure, camps or a military hierarchy; instead, the term Águilas Negras is used as a "franchise" by different, unrelated criminal gangs.

The Black Eagles first appeared in the Norte de Santander area in 2006.^[4] On 18 October 2006, President Álvaro Uribe openly ordered their detention.^[5] The government ordered the creation of a new Search Bloc against the Black Eagles and classified them as a gang of former paramilitaries.^[6]

The Black Eagles were one of a number of groups formed following the demilitarisation of the AUC, and were said to be closely linked with the Usuga Clan drug cartel and right-wing neo-paramilitary group.^[7]

The Black Eagles were closely associated with drug cartels and were involved in drug trafficking activities, extortion, racketeering and kidnapping. They also attacked guerrilla members and suspected sympathizers. One individual accused of leading the Black Eagles was former AUC leader Vicente Castaño.^[8] Castaño later disappeared, and is believed to have been assassinated on the orders of Diego Murillo Bejarano in retaliation for taking control of his territory and criminal rackets.^[9][10]

• Los Rastrojos: operating in Cauca and Valle del Cauca^[11] (approximately 1,200 members).^[12]
• Mano Negra: operating in Putumayo (unknown number of members).^[13]

• Colombia Reports: Aguilas Negras profile Archived 2012-10-02 at the Wayback Machine