Corruption in Colombia
Institutional corruption in the country
Corruption in Colombia is a pervasive problem at all levels of government, as well as in the military and police forces. A general culture and awareness of this corruption permeates society as a whole.
Various factors have contributed to political corruption in Colombia, including: drug trafficking, guerrilla and paramilitary conflict, weak surveillance and regulation from institutions, intimidation and harassment of whistle-blowers, and a widespread apathy from society to address unethical behavior. The government is continuously taking steps to measure and reduce levels of corruption at all levels through anti-corruption policies. Initiatives have also been headed by the private sector in the interest of facilitating and encouraging business activities.
A Global Corruption Barometer survey from 2010 found that the institutions seen as most corrupt were the political parties and the parliament, followed by the police and public officials, the judiciary and the military.
Transparency International's 2025 Corruption Perceptions Index, based on experts' and businesspeople's perceptions of corruption in the public sector, gave Colombia a score of 37 on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"). When ranked by score, Colombia ranked 99th among the 182 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with regional scores, the best score among the countries of the Americas was 75, the average score was 42 and the worst score was 10. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 89 (ranked 1), the average score was 42, and the worst score was 9 (ranked 181, in a two-way tie).
The public source identifies “Corruption in Colombia” as institutional corruption in the country. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Corruption, Colombia and Institutional.
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This entry incorporates text from “Corruption in Colombia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.