Banana company Chiquita Brands International is to pay a $25m (€18.9m) fine after admitting it paid terrorists for protection in a volatile farming region of Colombia.

The settlement resolves a lengthy US justice department investigation into the company’s financial dealings with right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels that the US government deems terrorist groups.

In court documents filed yesterday, federal prosecutors said the American company and several unidentified high-ranking corporate officers paid about $1.7m (€1.3m) between 1997 and 2004 to the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia, known as AUC for its Spanish initials.

The AUC has been responsible for some of the worst massacres in Colombia’s civil conflict and for a sizable percentage of the country’s cocaine exports.

The US government designated the right-wing militia a terror organisation in September 2001.

Prosecutors said the company made the payments in exchange for protection for its workers.

Besides paying the AUC, prosecutors said, Chiquita made payments to the National Liberation Army, or ELN, and the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, as control of the company’s banana-growing area shifted.

Leftist rebels and far-right paramilitaries have fought viciously over Colombia’s banana-growing region, although victims most often are non-combatants. Most companies in the area have extensive security operations to protect employees.

In Colombia, authorities reported yesterday that nine geologists searching for gold were captured by FARC. In addition, the army confirmed that four contractors hired by Colombian oil giant Ecopetrol were missing near Colombia’s border with Venezuela.

Colombia has one of the highest kidnapping rates in the world. Arrangements between companies and either guerrillas or paramilitaries are not uncommon, but it is impossible to know how much money is paid each year.