The EU has listed three Colombian nationals operating an employment agency that recruited 350–380 retired Colombian soldiers, including drone operators and child soldiers’ instructors, to fight for the Rapid Support Forces in Sudan. The network has links to the Norte del Valle Cartel and processed its payroll through US-based financial intermediaries
Council Implementing Regulation (EU) 2026/1051 and Implementing Decision (CFSP) 2026/1049, both adopted on 7 May 2026, add three persons to the EU Sudan sanctions list under Regulation (EU) No 747/2014, implementing a UN Security Council designations adopted on 28 April 2026 by the committee established under Resolution 1591(2005). The three listings represent the first time the Sudan sanctions regime has been used to target a foreign private military recruitment network operating on behalf of the RSF.
At the centre of the network is Alvaro Andres Quijano Becerra, a Colombian-Italian dual national born in Bogotá in 1967. Quijano co-founded International Services Agency (A4SI), a Bogotá-based employment agency that served as the primary recruitment node for the operation. A4SI ran active recruitment campaigns via its website, group chats, and townhall meetings, advertising for drone operators, snipers, translators, and infantry. Between 350 and 380 retired Colombian soldiers were recruited through A4SI and several associated private security firms. Quijano, described in the UN designation as a former associate of the Norte del Valle Cartel, is supported by a network of associates and companies specialising in recruiting combatants and moving associated funds.
The second listing is Claudia Viviana Oliveros Forero, the owner and manager of A4SI, born in Bogotá in 1973. Oliveros is designated for the same conduct as Quijano, as she ran the operational side of the recruitment agency, overseeing the campaigns that filled positions in Sudan.
The third listing, Mateo Andres Duque Botero, a Colombian-Spanish dual national born in 1975, handled the financial architecture. Duque manages Maine Global Corp, a company that processes payroll payments for the Colombian fighters and acts as a foreign exchange intermediary, converting euros and Colombian pesos into US dollars. In 2024 and 2025, US-based firms associated with Duque conducted numerous wire transfers totalling millions of dollars to Maine Global Corp, Global Staffing (now rebranded as Talent Bridge), and the company directly employing the fighters.
The designation documents are explicit about what these fighters did in Sudan. Video and photographic evidence shows Colombian recruits providing the RSF with tactical and technical expertise, serving as infantry, artillerymen, drone pilots, vehicle operators, and instructors, and even with some training children to fight. The fighters participated in battles in Khartoum, Omdurman, Kordofan, and El Fasher, the latter currently the site of what the UN has described as the last major remaining humanitarian refuge in Darfur. Their presence in El Fasher is particularly significant: the RSF’s assault on that city has been the subject of genocide allegations before multiple international bodies.
The EU sanctions apply immediately to all three individuals across all 27 Member States. The listings sit within the Darfur-specific framework established by UNSC Resolution 1591(2005), which targets actors threatening the peace, security, or stability of Darfur, a narrower geographic and legal basis than the broader Sudan sanctions architecture. This means the designations are specifically framed around Darfur, giving the Security Council committee jurisdiction over actors operating anywhere in the world who are found to be threatening stability in that region. The transnational character of this network, recruitment in Colombia, financing through US entities, and combat operations in Sudan, illustrates the kind of evasion architecture that the Darfur regime was designed to reach.
