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Emboldened by its July 2 rescue of high-profile captives from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, the government will look toward the next step in its security campaign: eliminating the drug trade as a whole.

Reports are surfacing that the July 2 Colombian hostage rescue was achieved through a complex plan involving the infiltration of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, along with signals interference that tricked the FARC into turning over the hostages without a fight.

The U.S. military reportedly had decoded FARC communications and was intercepting its radio traffic. The Colombians then sent a series of coded messages to the FARC saying that the hostages were going to be transported by a friendly nongovernmental organization to the southern part of the country on the orders of FARC leader Alfonso Cano, who was considering a hostage swap. The Colombians then landed their helicopters in the FARC camp, picked up the hostages and flew off. The operation appears to have gone off without a single shot being fired.

Pulled from the FARC jungle hideout after years of captivity were Ingrid Betancourt, a French-Colombian citizen and former presidential candidate, three U.S. hostages and 11 captured Colombian soldiers.