In early July 2025, Colombia and Venezuela signed a memorandum of understanding to establish a “Binational Special Economic Zone” (ZEEB) along the border shared by Táchira and Zulia on the Venezuelan side and Norte de Santander in Colombia.
Presented as an initiative to enhance “peace, economic development, cultural integration, and resolve historical issues,” this project promises prosperity for one of the most vibrant yet conflicted borders in Latin America. However, many see this promise as a risk: a potential Trojan horse that, under the guise of cooperation, could facilitate the quiet advance of authoritarian and criminal interests.
Former presidents, ex-ministers, ex-governors, presidential candidates, parliamentarians, retired military, security specialists, and civil society representatives have raised their voices against the measure. Notably, there is a striking convergence of concerns among key actors from both countries who, despite different political contexts, agree on essential warnings: the opacity and lack of democratic legitimacy of the agreement; loss of sovereignty and the consolidation of a criminal ecosystem at the border; and the risk of authoritarian spillover into Colombia and the region.
Opacity and Lack of Democratic Legitimacy of the Agreement
In both countries, there are complaints about the lack of transparency surrounding the agreements made between the governments of Gustavo Petro and Nicolás Maduro on such a sensitive issue as the border. Essential legal and territorial details necessary to understand the extent of the agreement are unknown, and the memorandum itself acknowledges that “the specific geographic area is yet to be defined.”
In addition to this lack of transparency, there is non-compliance with the legal procedures and a lack of consultation with key stakeholders, especially border communities, local authorities, and productive actors who would directly bear the impacts of the ZEEB.
Concerning these issues, former Colombian president Iván Duque has denounced the measure’s illegality, stating that “agreements are being signed that lack treaties, lack defined responsibilities, and have not been ratified by Congress.” Using similar arguments, senator and pre-candidate María Fernanda Cabal filed a nullity lawsuit against the memorandum of understanding before the Council of State.
The Dangers of Special Economic Zones Under Autocratic Regimes
Although Special Economic Zones (ZEE) are designed to attract investment, boost trade, and generate jobs through tax incentives and deregulation, various studies have shown that they can also become platforms for organized crime and illicit financial flows.
The report “Illicit Financial Flows” (2025) by Kristina Amerhauser warns that these zones provide ideal space for generating and laundering illegal income in various ways. Even back in 2012, the World Economic Forum classified them as “facilitators of organized crime” due to their lack of transparency and weak safeguards against money laundering and terrorism financing.
In contexts of authoritarianism and state corruption, the risks multiply. The report “Blind Spots” (Ronan P. Rowden, 2022) states that under opaque regimes, ZEEs can be co-opted by political and criminal elites to legitimize illicit income, protect informal economies, and consolidate enclaves beyond the reach of the law.
In Venezuela, the most illustrative example of this phenomenon is the Orinoco Mining Arc. Although not formally a ZEE, it shares critical vulnerabilities: a state of exception, discretionary incentives, opacity, and a lack of citizen oversight. Under the legal guise of a Strategic Development Zone, this area has become a platform for criminal activities and intensive exploitation of mineral resources for the benefit of a political-military elite, regime-allied businessmen, and irregular armed groups operating with the approval of the Venezuelan state.
According to the report “Gold Exploitation in Venezuela 2024,” produced by the NGO Transparency Venezuela, it is estimated that in 2023, of the USD 2.75 billion generated by gold production, only 14 percent reached the Venezuelan state. Of the remaining 86 percent, 66 percent reportedly remained in the hands of the political-military elite and their allies, while 20 percent ended up with criminal groups like the ELN and dissidents from the FARC.
Loss of Sovereignty and Consolidation of a Criminal Ecosystem
The experience of the Orinoco Mining Arc serves as a clear warning: establishing a ZEEB in a context of institutional opacity and state capture by political-criminal networks will further erode the weakened sovereignty that the states of Colombia and Venezuela exercise over those border territories, exacerbating existing dangers.
Multiple reports, including the memorandum itself, acknowledge that this corridor is one of the most active in the region for drug trafficking, extortion, smuggling, and human trafficking. In this area, the ELN, dissidents from the FARC, the Cartel de los Soles, and transnational gangs like Tren de Aragua exert strong control over illicit economies and local communities.
In this regard, César Pérez Vivas, a former governor of Táchira, warns: “This is a territory where the binational guerrilla operates openly, with whole areas under the control of the ELN and with the acquiescence of Maduro’s regime. The creation of this new legal figure will only facilitate that control and the criminal activities occurring there.” Former president Álvaro Uribe shared a similar concern, stating that “it is unacceptable the binational zone agreed upon with Maduro’s tyranny. There, criminality financed by drug trafficking prevails, sponsored, and protected by Maduro.”
Risk of Authoritarian Contagion and Destabilization for the Region
Another serious risk is that the ZEEB, by amplifying the vulnerabilities already mentioned at the Colombian-Venezuelan border, could favor the expansion of authoritarian practices and institutions of 21st Century Socialism into Colombia and the rest of the region. The creation of this zone would strengthen the ELN, which, as documented by the NGO Fundaredes, operates in vast areas of the border as a parallel authority to the state and as “the first line of defense of the Bolivarian Revolution,” according to researcher Jorge Mantilla.
In practice, the ZEEB would function as “a gray area where criminal groups begin to assume de facto control with the support of a state to reinforce Maduro’s regime in case of any governmental actions, and eventually as a zone of destabilization for Colombia and for a government of a different tendency than the one currently ruling us,” warns Carlos Augusto Chacón, director of the Institute of Political Sciences, in an interview with NTN24.
In the same vein, former Colombian president Andrés Pastrana questions whether Petro’s government “will hand over border territories to the narco-dictator Nicolás Maduro” and create “a binational zone to promote transnational crime.” Meanwhile, Venezuelan leader María Corina Machado warned that the ZEEB proposal “raises enormous concern in democratic forces and security and intelligence agencies across the hemisphere” due to the dangers posed by what is being established there.
In summary, the ZEEB, under the facade of economic cooperation and peace, risks becoming a genuine Trojan horse for security and democracy in the hemisphere: it would strengthen armed criminal actors allied with chavismo, consolidate political control of these groups over the border, and serve as a platform to export organized crime and autocracy throughout the region.
RCA