Washington (Somalia Today) — The United States has imposed sanctions on a Colombian-led network that recruited and paid former soldiers – and even trained children – to fight for Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group at the centre of what aid agencies call one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Tuesday named four individuals and four companies in Colombia, Panama and elsewhere. Treasury says they moved men and money across three continents to bolster the RSF’s war effort in Sudan, which Washington links to atrocities in Darfur and Khartoum.
The sanctions hit retired Colombian officer Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra; his Bogotá-based recruitment firm International Services Agency (A4SI); Panama-based Global Staffing S.A.; Colombia’s Maine Global Corp S.A.S.; and three other senior figures and companies tied to the scheme.
The designations freeze any assets under U.S. jurisdiction and bar U.S. persons from dealing with them.
Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley said the measures target “a network that recruits fighters for the Rapid Support Forces,” describing a group that has “target[ed] civilians—including infants and young children” and whose brutality has “destabilized the region” and opened space for armed groups.
Treasury says Colombian fighters helped the RSF capture El Fasher, the last Sudanese army stronghold in Darfur, after an 18-month siege that ended on October 26, 2025.
It accuses the RSF and allied militias of then carrying out mass killings, ethnically targeted torture and widespread sexual violence against civilians.
Colombian fighters
According to a Treasury press release, hundreds of former Colombian military personnel have travelled to Sudan since September 2024 to fight alongside the RSF. They serve as infantry and artillery fighters, drone pilots, vehicle operators and instructors, with some training children to fight.
Treasury says these Colombians have taken part in battles in Khartoum, Omdurman, Kordofan and El Fasher, providing tactical and technical expertise to a force already notorious for scorched-earth tactics.
Quijano, a dual Colombian–Italian national based in the United Arab Emirates and described by OFAC as a former associate of the Norte del Valle drug cartel, sits at the centre of the scheme. Treasury portrays his network as a specialised recruiter and paymaster for mercenaries bound for Sudan.
In Bogotá, A4SI operates as the main recruiting hub. The firm has run campaigns through its website, group chats and town-hall meetings to fill positions such as drone operators, snipers and translators. Quijano co-founded A4SI, while his wife, Colombian national Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, owns and manages it.
Somalia’s Bosaso link
Reports from Bosaso, on Somalia’s Puntland coast, show how this Colombian pipeline intersects with a logistics hub tied to RSF resupply.
An investigation by Middle East Eye described IL-76 cargo planes landing at Bosaso airport since 2023, offloading tightly guarded “hazardous” containers that ground staff then shifted onto other aircraft bound for Sudan.
The report said security teams blocked local officials from inspecting the cargo and linked the operation to the United Arab Emirates.
Port officials told reporters that about 500,000 such containers passed through Bosaso over two years, with paperwork marking them as transit shipments rather than imports for Puntland.
They said they believed the operation supported Sudan’s war rather than Puntland’s own UAE-funded maritime force, according to the investigation.
The same reporting documented a camp just north of Bosaso airport that houses Colombian mercenaries involved in Sudan’s conflict.
Photos showed dozens of Spanish-speaking men with backpacks disembarking at Bosaso and heading directly into the compound, which sources described as a staging and medical transit point for foreign fighters.
Somalia’s defence minister, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, later told the Upper House in Mogadishu that the federal government knows about flights between Bosaso and Sudan.
He said authorities do not know who operates the planes or what they carry, but his comments marked the first public acknowledgment from Mogadishu that Bosaso is part of an air bridge to Sudan’s front lines.
Money network
OFAC says A4SI relied on Panama-based Global Staffing S.A. — now renamed Talent Bridge S.A. — to “minimize A4SI’s legal exposure and obfuscate” the link to the company hiring the Colombian fighters.
Global Staffing signed contracts and received funds on A4SI’s behalf while presenting itself as an independent human-resources provider.
The overlap ran deep. Treasury notes that Global Staffing’s website is identical to A4SI’s. Oliveros, while running A4SI, served until recently as Global Staffing’s president and treasurer and still appears as a company subscriber. OFAC therefore treats Global Staffing as acting for or on behalf of A4SI.
Maine Global Corp S.A.S., another Bogotá employment agency, is managed by dual Colombian–Spanish national Mateo Andres Duque Botero.
Treasury says Maine Global handled and disbursed funds for Global Staffing and for the company that hired the Colombians, with support from U.S.-based firms associated with Duque.
Those firms processed payroll for the Colombian fighters and acted as foreign-exchange intermediaries, converting euros and Colombian pesos into U.S. dollars.
In 2024 and 2025, U.S.-based firms linked to Duque carried out numerous wire transfers worth millions of dollars involving Maine Global, Global Staffing and the hiring company, according to OFAC.
Treasury also singles out Colombian national Monica Muñoz Ucros, Maine Global’s alternate manager and the head of Bogotá-based Comercializadora San Bendito.
San Bendito handled wire transfers with a U.S. firm associated with Duque and with Duque himself, bringing both the individual and the company under sanctions.
Alleged UAE role
A separate report by watchdog The Sentry says a UAE-registered firm, Global Security Services Group (GSSG), arranged the deployment of Colombian fighters to Sudan.
GSSG describes itself as “the only armed private security services provider for the UAE government” and lists core state institutions in Abu Dhabi as clients.
According to contracts cited in that report, GSSG authorised Global Staffing in Panama to receive and disburse the Colombians’ salaries via an offshore account. In that structure, a UAE company contracts A4SI in Colombia to recruit the men, while their pay flows through Global Staffing and Maine Global into accounts that ultimately fund RSF-linked operations.
Sudan has gone further. In a complaint to the UN Security Council, summarised by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, Khartoum accuses the UAE of financing and deploying Colombian mercenaries to fight for the RSF and names both GSSG and A4SI.
The brief says the battalion, known as the “Desert Wolves,” was hired through a Colombian firm contracted by GSSG and led by a retired Colombian general based in Dubai.
Abu Dhabi has denied the accusations and says claims that it supplies mercenaries or weapons to the RSF are based on fabricated evidence.
Investigations by Le Monde Afrique and other outlets say the UAE has also supplied drones, armoured vehicles and other weaponry to the RSF via a regional air bridge that runs through hubs such as Bosaso, eastern Libya and Chad.
Those reports contend that without Emirati funding, hardware and foreign fighters, the RSF would have struggled to sustain its campaign in Darfur and North Kordofan. The UAE continues to reject allegations that it backs the RSF militarily.
Genocide finding
The sanctions announcement comes less than a year after the U.S. State Department determined that RSF forces and allied militias had committed genocide in Darfur, alongside war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Washington at that time rolled out a first wave of accountability measures against RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, and RSF-linked companies. The genocide determination appears in a State Department statement.
Treasury repeats that since the conflict erupted between the RSF and Sudan’s army in April 2023, RSF fighters and allied militias have repeatedly targeted civilians, “systematically” killing men and boys — including infants — and using rape and other forms of sexual violence against women and girls.
It also accuses the group of blocking access to life-saving humanitarian aid.
UN agencies and aid groups now describe Sudan as one of the world’s gravest displacement and protection crises. They estimate that more than 12 million people have fled their homes, while tens of millions need assistance after more than two years of war.
The fall of El Fasher after months of siege, followed by what UN officials and rights groups describe as mass killings and mass displacement, has driven new waves of civilians out of Darfur and neighbouring Kordofan and pushed famine risks higher across the region.
Sanctions impact
OFAC says Quijano and A4SI are designated under Executive Order 14098, which authorises sanctions on foreign persons deemed to threaten Sudan’s peace, security or stability or to undermine a transition to civilian rule.
Oliveros, Duque and Muñoz appear as leaders of sanctioned entities, while Global Staffing, Maine Global and San Bendito are designated for being owned or controlled by, or for providing material support to, already-blocked persons.
Under the Sudan Stabilization Sanctions Regulations, all property and interests in property of those designated that are in the United States or held by U.S. persons are blocked. U.S. persons may not, unless authorised, enter into transactions that involve that property, including the provision or receipt of funds, goods or services.
OFAC can levy civil penalties for violations and allows designated parties to petition for removal from its Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.
U.S. officials say the latest designations seek to cut both money and manpower to the RSF and to signal to recruiters and intermediaries — from Bogotá to Bosaso — that servicing Sudan’s war carries sanctions risk.
