Medellín, Colombia – Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez prompted outrage last week after “censoring” a new book on M-19 guerrilla history at a public library.

Gutiérrez cancelled a talk of the book on April 21, saying that it glorifies terrorism and has no place in a public library.

The cancellation has drawn widespread criticism, with many observers citing the hypocrisy of the move one month after UNESCO designated Medellín as its 2027 World Book Capital.

Shortly before an event for the book at a public library on April 21, Gutiérrez announced on X: “This event will be cancelled. In Medellin, there will never be room for the glorification of terrorism. The M-19 was not a ‘romantic tale’: it was a terrorist armed group that left victims, pain, and death in Colombia.”

Attendants at the packed auditorium were visibly opposed to the measure, according to newspaper El País. Although staff removed microphones and speakers and the police surrounded the building, spectators remained in their seats.

“Our city respects the memory of the victims; no to propaganda for those that wielded weapons. This event has an obviously political character, and no public entity can host it,” the mayor continued. 

But the book’s author, sociology professor Jaime Rafael Nieto, insisted that the government should not be able to censor events like the one last week: “This is not a space for government officials, but for writers, artists and citizens,” he told Spanish newspaper El País via phone call. 

The April 19th Movement (M-19) guerrilla was founded in the early 1970s and became a violent urban actor, perpetrating kidnappings and killings in cities as well as symbolic crimes including the theft of libertador Simon Bolívar’s sword from its resting place and the Palace of Justice siege which left over 100 dead. 

Incumbent leftist Colombian President Gustavo Petro – who has routinely publicly clashed with rightist Gutiérrez – was an M-19 militant, operating under the nome de guerre “Aureliano”. 

He joined in the criticism of Gutiérrez’s move, writing on X: “The M-19 after making peace, was a legal movement with legal status. What you’re doing is censorship. Those who censor books end up burning them, and then they end up burning humans at stakes. Don’t censor; let minds and thoughts be free.”

Medellín’s history of books: a reformed city 

Colombia’s second-largest city has seen a 542% rise in bookstores over the past seven decades, and is home to over 110 bookstores and 25 libraries – many of which were transformed from former prisons and police facilities, as per UNESCO. 

“Medellín has become an international reference for urban and cultural transformation, where books and libraries play a crucial role in bringing positive social change. [Its] designation as World Book Capital 2027 is a powerful message on how culture can build peace and social cohesion,” noted Khaled El-Enany, UNESCO director-general. 

The city’s literary turn is thus inseparable from its broader reinvention. Having been named the world’s “murder capital” in 1991, when 16 people were murdered daily on average, it has spent decades recasting itself through culture and education. 

In 2004, then-mayor Sergio Fajardo – now a presidential candidate for the upcoming May 31, 2026 election – deployed a plan to combat structural violent patterns, investing in the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Libraries, metrocables and cultural centers were planted in the hillside of comunas, once the most dangerous neighborhoods in the Americas. 

Over a 15-year period, Medellin built 60 cultural facilities in areas with the highest poverty, historic violence and population densities, and by 2024, the city recorded 300 homicides per 100,000 people – the lowest since 1942. 

The result is a city that has made literary culture central to its identity. Every September, the Fiesta del Libro y la Cultura (Celebration of Books and Culture) – backed by $9 billion Colombian pesos ($2.5 million USD) from the mayor’s office – draws hundreds of national and international guests to its botanical gardens, parks and cultural centers. 

The city also hosts an annual edition of the Hay Festival, the prestigious Welsh literary gathering. 

Banned in the city of books 

Regardless of Mayor Gutiérrez’s disapproval, the event on April 21 continued, with organizers stressing they consulted with the attendees what they believed should be done. 

“There were three options: cancelling the event, going someplace different, or reaffirming our condition of citizens which occupy the city’s public space,” they said. Meanwhile, Nieto confirmed that the launch had been scheduled a month prior, and that the decision to go ahead in spite of the mayor’s outrage was an “act of civil resistance.” 

“[The book is about] interpreting how the M-19 emerged and what its characteristics were. It isn’t about justifying its actions, because then the investigation would take on a partisan bias, and that’s not the case,” the M-19: From War to Politics author added. 

The M-19 has become a contentious subject in Colombian politics since the election of Petro in 2022 as the country’s first leftist president, although the group demobilized in 1990. 

Petro joined the urban guerrilla at 17 years old, but not as a combatant. As per Colombian news outlet La silla vacía, he was arrested by armed forces in 1985, and spent 18 months in prison, where he directed the jail library. 

One of Petro’s greatest feats as an M-19 militant, in fact, was promoting the peace process that saw the group’s turn to peace and legality from 1989 to 1990. Most recently, the head of state celebrated his birthday on the anniversary of the armed group’s founding.

Nieto believes that studying M-19 history is imperative to understanding Petro’s government, and his book’s thesis: the M-19 was the Colombian armed actor that best knew how to combine war with politics.

“Every act of war produced political effects. And that made it a political actor,” he told El País.

Featured image: Federico Gutiérrez via X.

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Since 1970, when Italian collectibles company Panini launched its first official World Cup sticker collection in Mexico, the brand has focused on churning out collectible sticker albums for each subsequent World Cup. In Colombia, the tradition has deep roots.

“I believe that [in Colombia], there is a very deep-rooted culture of collecting. People collect toy cars, dolls, and jerseys; therefore, the Panini football album is no exception,” sports journalist Diego Chiriví told The Bogotá Post. 

Although the global fever began in the ‘70s, it was during the 1980s and, especially, during the 1990 World Cup, that the ritual became a national phenomenon in the country.

“We are one of the top five countries in the world for sticker sales. For us, Panini is a tradition—a legacy we share from generation to generation with every World Cup,” Luis Felipe Gallego, Commercial Vice President at Continente (Panini’s official distributor in Colombia), told The Bogotá Post.

Initially, completing the album was an activity reserved for specialized football fans. However, over the decades, this hobby has expanded its reach, becoming a massive social phenomenon that now captures the country’s attention.

This shift solidified in 2014, when the collection moved from being a niche hobby to a popular tradition.

“In 2014, the Colombian National Team united the entire country. The team represented hope, reaching the quarter-finals for the first time in history. When they returned, over a million people welcomed them in Bogotá. It was the most unforgettable team of this generation, and since then, the ‘fever’ for the Panini album has only grown,” said Chiriví.

Read more from 2014: Panini Madness Strikes

Indeed, this passion has moved from private collections to the streets, becoming a social ritual where ‘cambiatones‘, or sticker swaps, take center stage. 

These massive gatherings in parks and shopping malls have turned the hobby into a collective mission, where people of all ages trade ‘monas‘ (stickers) to complete their albums.

“It’s a family tradition—grandparents, uncles, parents, everyone is involved,” explained Elie Milhem, Panini’s CEO in Colombia. “People love seeing which players will make it to the World Cup, and that passion has made us one of the top ten countries for Panini sales in the world.”

The “repetidas” (duplicates) are what make the hobby exciting. Even though every sticker is printed in the same quantity, the random packs make some feel impossible to find. This struggle is what pushes people to meet and trade, turning the album into a competitive race to see who can finish first.

This year, the challenge is bigger than ever. For the first time in World Cup history, 48 teams will participate, meaning the album now features 112 pages and 980 stickers. This massive scale makes completing the collection an even more difficult mission for fans.

The stickers also come in four different versions: gold, silver, bronze, and the common ones. The gold, silver, and bronze versions are considered real treasures because they are much harder to find. Getting one of these in a pack feels like winning a prize, and they are often the most valuable pieces to trade during the ‘cambiatones.’

“I would say the Lionel Messi sticker, in any of its years, but especially the 2018 Russia version, was incredibly tough to find,” Chiriví shared. “In 2022, it was much easier, but because of what happened four years prior, the 2018 Messi sticker became almost impossible.”

Surely, Colombians will be on the hunt this year as their national team kicks off soccer’s biggest tournament facing Uzbekistan on June 17.

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Colombia’s transitional justice mechanism, the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP), announced yesterday that it had revised the official number of “false positive” killings – deaths illegitimately presented as combat casualties – from 6,402 to 7,837.

The announcement came as part of the JEP’s Macro Case 03, which is investigating extrajudicial executions between 1990 and 2016.

The country’s Truth Commission had previously established 6,402 cases of “false positive” killings but the JEP’s latest figures suggest the scale of one of the country’s largest scandals was greater than previously thought. 

The information was provided by Pedro Elías Díaz on April 24, Magistrate of the Legal Situations Definition Chamber, during a hearing related to a massacre of leaders and children in San José de Apartadó, Antioquia. Díaz first revealed that 1,932 people had been killed in the department between 1990 and 2016, before disclosing the new national figure.

“The report also highlighted statistics on homicides and forced disappearances allegedly attributed to the public force between 1990 and 2016 nationwide, classified as illegitimate killings presented as combat deaths, amounting to 7,837 victims—a figure that remains dynamic as cases progress,” said Díaz. 

The magistrate affirmed that in addition to the forensic identification of victims, the latest figures were based on victims’ reports submitted to the JEP since 2018 and documents from the National Center for Historical Memory, the Office of the Inspector General, and the Office of the Attorney General.

JEP President Alejandro Ramelli Arteaga later confirmed the revised figures and said that the period during which the “false positives” occurred was extended, from 2002 to 2008, to 1990 to 2016. 

Ramelli added that the number is likely to increase as investigations continue: “They have been holding territorial hearings with those most responsible, who are also confessing to cases of executions and disappearances that had never been investigated. It is most likely that this new figure will continue to increase in the future.”

The “false positives”, many of which occurred during the administration of ex-President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010) are highly politicized.

President Gustavo Petro responded to the news with thinly veiled criticism of Uribe, whose Democratic Center (CD) party won the second highest number of seats in recent congressional elections. 

“There are 7,837 victims of the state due to the systematic execution of young people under the government of the so-called “Democratic Security” policy — in reality, a policy of total death… They do not want reelection for social justice; they want it for death,” wrote Petro on X.  

Paloma Valencia, the CD’s presidential candidate, has pledged an iron-fisted approach to armed groups similar to that of her political mentor, Uribe, who continues to lead the party. 

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Increasing numbers of travelers being denied entry after interrogations at the border.

Five foreign tourists flying into Colombia were turned back at Medellín airport Tuesday last week after other passengers reported them for “conversing on the plane about their plans for sexual encounters”.

Although not clear who exactly denounced the travelers, or what other evidence was produced, immigration officers barred them entry after declaring their reasons to visit Colombia as “illegitimate”.

The case is part of a growing crackdown by immigration authorities against sex tourism in Colombia, which has been on the rise in recent years.

The five U.S. citizens were interviewed by immigration officials after arriving at José Maria Cordova airport on a United Airlines flight from Houston.

According to posts by Migración Colombia, the men were overheard during the inbound flight discussing hiring sex workers to “fulfil their fantasies”.

The cases highlighted a trend of increasing sex tourism but also stronger measures to prevent it, said immigration officials this week.

“We are focusing immigration control on detecting these types of offenders, fighting sexual exploitation, and protecting children not only in Antioquia but throughout the country,” said Gloria Arriero, director of Migración Colombia.

Data showed that 60 tourists were denied entry at airports in the first four months of 2026, compared to 110 in all of 2025. 

Watching angels

The problem existed in tourist destinations like Cartagena and Bogotá, but was most evident in Medellín, the capital of Antioquia and Colombia’s second city, said Arriero, with 48 of the cases registered at the José María Córdova Airport. Of the persons barred this year 51 were U.S. citizens.

In the last week alone 15 foreign nationals, mostly U.S. nationals, were denied entry including the five passengers overheard on the plane. Many of the suspects were arriving on flights from Houston, Miami and New York, added Arriero.

The latest expulsions followed a campaign by Medellín’s mayor Fico Gutiérrez to stamp out a rise in human trafficking and sexual exploitation, particularly of children, linked to organized crime and visitors to the city.

Prostitution is legal in Colombia although immigration officers have autonomous powers to deny entry to travelers if they suspect them of sex tourism. Checks have gathered pace in recent years under the “Angel Watch” system that allows Colombian immigration to identify foreign travelers with criminal records or reports of sexual offences against minors before they enter the country.

Angel Watch, which has been running in Colombia since 2024, gives immigration officers real-time access to data from national sex offender registries and state websites in the U.S, including the Department of Homeland Security and National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC).

The U.S.-based Angel Watch Center then alerts overseas authorities to its citizens with convictions for sexual crimes against minors. Specialized police task forces in Colombia also use international alerts from INTERPOL to intercept other nationalities.

Angel Watch alerts can catch potential offenders at points of entry or prevent undesirables from obtaining or extending visas, if they are long stayers. The system blocks around 50 travelers a year detected with a history of pedophilia or sexual aggression.

Cell phones searches

For other cases border authorities rely on old-fashioned detective work, such as the case of the five travelers hauled in for questioning after reports of their lewd talk on the plane.

In February, two men were netted after being spotted filming children during the inbound flight. On investigation, border officers found bans from multiple countries for sexual offences involving minors.

Others have been interrogated based on items detected in their luggage; in February, a Lithuanian was sent home after inspectors found a huge haul of sex toys. These were decreed “inconsistent with his declared purpose for visiting Colombia” according to a press release at the time.

Migración has also revealed cases where large numbers of condoms, lingerie, or exaggerated quantities of “potency drugs” triggered interrogations and cell-phone searches which then revealed plans for sex tourism.

Migration officers also accompanied police units in sweeps where foreigners were suspected to be involved in wrongdoing. Tactics included visiting hotels and hostels which had registered visitors with previous convictions, but also monitoring their social media profiles for incriminating material.

Disturbing the peace

Earlier in April, Migración deported in a blitz of publicity Medellín-based influencer ‘Chill Capo’ (real name Steve Newland) who was sent back to the U.S. after being detained at a party in the city’s Parque Lleras, a hotspot for sex workers.

“We found he repeatedly used his social media to invite and organize sex parties at various establishments where the main focus is on women, viewed as just another object to attract foreigners,” said director of the regional migration office Paola Salazar.

#Medellín | Ruso, con extenso historial de quejas por alteraciones al orden público, fue expulsado, por parte de la autoridad migratoria.
El individuo abordó un vuelo con destino a Miami luego de que la entidad consolidara un contundente expediente basado en múltiples denuncias pic.twitter.com/wMcuQSz2zk

— Migración Colombia (@MigracionCol) April 13, 2026

The 42-year-old content creator denied the accusation claiming his on-line videos of sleaze-fests were simply to encourage “a safe experience” for clients seeking the services he advertised on social media. But since Newland’s visa had expired, he was slung out anyway and banned from the country for five years.

In another recent case, a U.S-Russian citizen living in the El Poblado district was detained and deported after two years of loud music, partying, and a constant parade of bikini-clad women in and out of his flashy flat. 

40-year-old George Wolfe held day-long parties on his rooftop flat and accumulated dozens of fines for disturbing the peace.

Wolfe, who claimed to be a lawyer, threatened to sue immigration authorities but they reminded him that the state “has the discretion to admit, not admit, or expel foreign citizens”.

The question circulating on social media after Wolfe’s deportation was if Colombia was now less welcoming to overseas visitors. But statistics suggest otherwise since more than nine million tourists visited last year. Instead, the message for Migración seems increasingly clear: sex tourists aren’t welcome.

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A bomb attack attributed to fighters from the EMC armed group killed 20 travelers trapped on the busy highway connecting Colombia’s southwestern cities on Saturday.

The tragic events in the El Tunel sector, close to the town of Cajibío, unfolded after the dissidents mounted a checkpoint on the main Via Panamericana south of Cali and 30 kilometers (20 miles) before Popayán.

The busy road runs through a mountainous region dominated by gangs run by the former guerrillas dedicated to a booming cocaine industry in hidden canyons beyond state control. At the illegal checkpoint the fighters forced truck drivers to block the road and abandon their vehicles, causing a long queue of traffic.

According to video posted online, soon after a midday the huge explosion rocked the valley mangling around 15 vehicles caught blockade including two minibuses with civilian passengers.

The governor of Cauca, Octavio Guzmán, confirmed the 20 dead civilians caught in the blast were 15 women and five men, all adults. A further 47 people were injured, of whom three were critical. Five children were recovering in hospital. Eleven of the affected persons came from the same village of Pedregosa, close to Cajibío, he added.

“What happened on April 25th constitutes the most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades in the department of Cauca,” the governor later announced.

The bomb had displaced 200 cubic meters of soil, he said, creating a crater five meters deep in the Panamericana highway, the main route linking Cali to Popayan and on to Ecuador. Despite the damage, road crews were able to partially reopen the road six hours after the blast.

Saturday’s attack, one of the worst atrocities in recent years, comes against a background of rising conflict between state forces and dissident armed groups in the southwest of Colombia.

#ULTIMAHORA

A nuestro medio de comunicación llega video #PRIMICIA del momento exacto donde explota el artefacto explosivo en el sector conocido como el TÚNEL CAJIBIO CAUCA entre popayan y piendamo @Noti90Minutos @DELAESPRIELLAE

Noticia en desarrollo pic.twitter.com/g4KEcSroYd

— SARCASTICO DE DERECHA (@esco27438) April 25, 2026

Terrorist tactics

Just in the last four days communities across three departments – Valle, Cauca and Nariño – reported a series of what appear to be coordinated attacks against civilian and military targets. These included:

• 24 April – A bus bomb exploded close to base of the Pichincha Battalion in the south of Cali, causing damage and three injuries.
• 24 April – In the nearby town of Palmira, Valle, an army base came under attack from cylinder bombs launched from a passing vehicle, no injuries were reported.
• 25 April – Two attackers launched grenades at a petrol station in Rozo, Valle, damaging vehicles.
• 25 April – A police station in the rural community of Potrerito, close to Jamundí, came under gunfire attack in the early hours of the morning.
• 25 April – In another morning attack, Aeronáutica Civil reported drones launching explosives against a hilltop air traffic station close to El Tambo (Cauca), damaging antennas and leaving the radar inoperative.
• 25 April – a chiva rural bus was hit by explosive charges while traveling on Route 25 near to Mercaderes, south of Popayan. Police reported several injured including a child but no deaths
• 26 April – four men were gunned down in a bar in Toro, Valle, between Cali and Pereira.

According to a tally by thinktank Indepaz, the Toro deaths were the 48^th massacre recorded in 2026. In Colombia a ‘massacre’ is defined by the intentional killing of three or more people at the same time.

This weekend’s attacks were typical of a return to terrorist tactics such as car bombs, motorbike bombs, drones dropping home-made explosives and other artisanal artefacts.

Saturday’s Cajibío attack was initially reported as a boobytrap bomb, or “IED” (Improvised Explosive Device) which are caches of high explosives buried by the roadside by rebel groups, usually aimed at passing military patrols

But later reports suggested the civilian vehicles were struck by a pipeta mortar. These are fashioned from household gas bottles and clumsily launched from mortars made of industrial piping.

Notoriously inaccurate, a pipetas have claimed many civilian lives in the Colombian conflict, most notably in the Chocó town of Bojayá in 2002 when a charge launched by FARC guerrillas struck a church killing 79 civilians sheltering inside.

Behind Saturday’s atrocity was alias ‘Marlon’ of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), said Colombia’s defence minister of defence Pedro Sanchez. The state offered a reward of US$140,000 for information leading to his capture.

Original dissidents

Marlon, whose real name is Iván Idrobo, was formerly in the ranks of the FARC guerrillas where he trained as a bomb maker. He is now thought to lead the EMC’s Frente Jaime Martínez which according to the Defensoria del Pueblo controls the cocaine trade, illegal gold mining and extortion rackets around the town of Suárez in the northwest of Cauca.

The EMC, lead by former FARC chief Iván Mordico, has proven to be the most intransigent of the myriad of armed groups which the current Petro government has tried to broker peace with under his controversial Paz Total policy.

See also: Peace Plan has Caused more Conflict, says Thinktank

Seen as the “original” dissidents that rejected the partly successful peace process under former president Manual Santos in 2016, the EMC initially agreed to negotiate when Gustavo Petro came to power in 2022 but soon engaged in bitter infighting with rival armed groups creating a rupture with Paz Total.

For his part, Petro tweeted his disgust at the Cajibío attack and the EMC “narco-terrorists” behind it.

“The groups led by Iván Mordisco in Cauca are criminals who have committed crimes against humanity and must be treated as such,” he said.

Some pundits commented that Petro’s early treatment of the EMC as a political actor had given the armed group room to expand, contributing to the current security crisis. In the heat of next month’s elections, others turned their ire on presidential candidate Iván Cepeda, seen as an architect of Petro’s struggling peace plans.

Rival right-wing candidate Paloma Valencia accused Cepeda of his role in “tying the hands of state forces, the rampant increase in illicit crops, the historic numbers of massacres, and waves of violence like today’s”.

Valencia also rounded on Petro for posting photos of his birthday celebrations even as the country was reeling from the horrific footage of the Cauca bombing. “Show some respect,” she messaged.

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Crucial Santa Marta conference will include voices of communities long opposed to the exploitation of fossil fuels.

Thirty years ago, Colombia’s U’wa people were ready to commit mass suicide by jumping off a 500-meter cliff. The close-knit indigenous community would rather die with dignity than succumb to oil exploration on their ancestral land.

The U’wa announced their dilemma in 1995 in an open letter that ricocheted around the world. It was no empty threat: 400 years before their ancestors had jumped from the Alto de los Infieles (Cliff of the Infidels) rather than submit to the Spanish colonial yoke.

“The U’wa were the first to call oil the ‘blood of the earth’,” explains Kevin Koenig, director of climate and energy at Amazon Watch, a U.S.-based non-profit. “The U’wa were the first to say that oil needs to stay in the ground. They warned against its extraction and its impact on the world.”

Amazon Watch has supported the U’wa to resist extractive industries over the same three decades, along with dozens of other at-risk communities in Latin America.

This week, in a ground-breaking conference in Santa Marta, some of those efforts will come full circle at the first global summit on “Transitioning away from Fossil Fuels”.

The six-day conference, starting April 24, will host 50 country delegations plus dozens of civil society organizations.

This “road map towards renewable energy” is backed by the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative, an alliance of nation states, technical bodies, communities and individuals working to secure a “global just transition from coal, oil and gas”.

For the organizers the timing is critical with climate upset, fuel shortages, war in the Middle East and big oil’s sticky grip on geopolitics more exposed than ever. There’s never been a better moment to move to renewable energy.

A key part of the conference will be representation from indigenous communities; the U’wa, along with many others, will have a voice at the table.

Glacier gone

For Koenig, it is also significant that the inaugural meeting is in Colombia, one of the world’s most biodiverse countries, but also an oil producer moving to curb fossil fuels and embrace renewables.

There is further symmetry in the location: the small coastal city of Santa Marta is “just over the hill” from the U’wa territory which straddles the tropical glaciers of the El Cocuy mountain range, Koenig tells The Bogotá Post.

A hiking route over the same mountains is known as Colombia’s climate change trail – see the ice before it melts.

Prophetically, just three weeks before the conference’s kick-off, the IDEAM climate agency reported that a glacier in the heart of U’wa territory had melted for good.

“Satellite monitoring confirms that Los Cerros de la Plaza glacier coverage is today at zero square kilometers,” it announced matter-of-factly.

Living these realities gives indigenous communities such as the U’wa, wedded to nature and geography, a powerful voice in the transition from fossil fuels.

This experience has often come at a high cost, says Koenig. In countries like Colombia, particularly in the Amazon, oil companies are an existential threat to both the natural environment and the communities it supports. Drilling is invariably a catalyst for violence.

“Some countries use oil extraction as a reason to open areas, saying ‘we can militarize it and it will be safer’. In fact, oil and energy infrastructures are a magnet for armed groups, for political attacks or blackmail,” he explains.

Amazon Watch has supported many indigenous communities to resist oil companies in the Amazon regions of southern Colombia, Peru and Ecuador, often through practical means such as providing solar power and communications equipment, trainings and legal resources, but also by raising their voices to the outside world.

The organization’s latest report, The Amazon Under Siege, highlights how extractive industries and the armed groups that trail in their wake are putting Amazon communities in the crossfire.

Oil addiction

Colombia might have turned a corner with its oil moratorium in Amazon regions but neighboring countries are on a different path, one that might be summed up by U.S. president Donald Trump’s call to “drill, baby, drill”.

“Ecuador is going in the opposite direction with new oil auctions, and two new exploration blocks in remote rainforest,” says Koenig. Peru is following suit in jungle areas hitherto untouched. Perhaps not surprisingly, neither of the Andean countries is attending the Santa Marta transition conference.

According to Koenig, Peru and Ecuador are already in the throes of social violence but now risk replicating Colombia’s conflict with its rural oil pipelines that are constantly attacked or bombed, or oil lines tapped by fuel thieves, creating spills in biodiverse hotspots.

Added to that, drilling new wells makes little economic sense, he says. Current markets are signalling peak oil demand by 2030 even while wind and solar are taking a bigger share of energy output.

By doubling down on oil extraction both countries are “gambling with their future.” Aside from the moral and ethical issues of drilling in remote rainforest with indigenous peoples, getting banks to fund these ventures against the headwinds of renewables is not guaranteed.

“This is the moment where we are seeing both wars linked to fossil fuels politics and dependencies, but also for the first time renewables energies are not just theoretical, they are real, and decision-makers know they are scalable,” notes Koenig.

Fresh air

This seismic shift is reflected in the sassy subtext of the Santa Marta conference: climate deniers not invited. Meetings are reserved for a “coalition of the willing”, Colombian environment minister Irene Vélez, a key organizer of the event, told the Guardian this week..

For campaigners like Kevin Koenig this attitude is a breath of fresh air. Previous climate change conferences, run by the UN, have failed to pin global warming on big oil, he says.

“We know that fossil fuels are the number one source of carbon emissions but that’s nowhere to be found in the Paris [climate change] agreement. That’s due largely to the influence of the oil industry and lobbyists,” says Koenig.

Changing the narrative requires an alignment between traditional knowledge and science, he says. Indigenous communities, the original resisters, are now part of that with their wealth of experience.

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Bogotá, Colombia – Leftist presidential candidate Iván Cepeda challenged his opponents to a debate on Saturday after turning down previous proposals to face-off with his rivals.

“I challenge the far right, its two candidates – Senator Paloma Valencia and lawyer Abelardo de la Espriella – to a debate,” Cepeda told a crowd at a rally in Fusagasugá, a city near Bogotá. 

His opponents responded by accepting the proposal, while also highlighting that they had been calling for a debate for months.

The possibility of a live face-off between candidates has been a recurring theme ahead of first-round presidential elections on May 31.

Shortly after beginning his candidacy last year, Cepeda dismissed the idea of participating in a debate: “I’m not going to take part in debates—let me make this clear from the outset—to exchange insults with other candidates, or to threaten one another, or to denigrate one another.”

Cepeda’s rivals have repeatedly criticized him for refusing to spar with them on the public stage, something they highlighted following the leftist candidate’s U-turn on Saturday.

“Allow me to correct you: you’re not issuing a challenge; you’re accepting the challenge you were invited to take up months ago,” said criminal defense attorney de la Espriella.

Valencia, the candidate for the Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party, also seized the opportunity to pounce on Cepeda: “A few weeks ago, it was I who challenged Iván Cepeda several times to a face-to-face debate, yet you chose to hide away in the Senate with a controlled microphone.”

She suggested that Cepeda’s U-turn owes to a worsening performance in recent polls: “Now that the polls are tightening, you’re coming out of Fusagasugá with this challenge.”

Analysts agreed with Valencia’s suggestion, saying that Cepeda’s debate proposal is an attempt to inject life into a stagnating campaign. 

“Cepeda has offered to debate because of his campaign’s inherent lack of momentum and general weakness. He is not captivating any new voters or finding a tangible way of changing the narrative in his favor,” Sergio Guzmán, Director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a political risk consultancy, told Latin America Reports. 

Internal party polls reportedly show sluggish growth in Cepeda’s polling numbers since he became the official candidate for the Pacto Histórico (Historic Pact) in October. 

Meanwhile, Valencia has been soaring in the polls following her victory in presidential primaries in March; Cepeda and de la Espriella did not partake.

But the debate is not without risk for Cepeda, according to Guzmán: “Cepeda runs the risk of having to go on the defensive of Petro and his administration.”

Others believe that Cepeda’s oratory style does not lend itself to the televised debate format.

“He has a much more academic tendency, which is not so typical in politics, let alone in modern politics,” noted Miguel Jaramillo Luján, a Colombian political strategist. In contrast, he noted that de la Espriella and Valencia have a more media-savvy communication style.

Nevertheless, the analyst told Latin America Reports that Cepeda’s debate style could give him the chance to woo crucial centrist voters: “I believe he can inspire confidence and credibility among his target audience and even among the centre, particularly when it comes to dispelling certain myths and lies that have been spread by the centre and the right.”

With the leading candidates agreeing to debate, the battle over the specifics – including moderators, questions, and location – begins. 

The post Colombia elections: candidates set for debate after Cepeda backtracks appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Presidential spat intensifies after Ecuadorian leader revisits old rumors that Petro met with drug gang during state visit.

President Petro says he will sue Daniel Noboa over an interview in which the Ecuadorian president accused his Colombian counterpart of associating with feared drug baron Adolfo Macías Villamar, alias ‘Fito’, during a state visit to Ecuador.

“I have decided to file a criminal complaint against President Noboa for his slander,” wrote Petro on his X account, following statements made by Ecuador’s leader to Semana News.

In Sunday’s interview Noboa made references to Petro’s visit to Ecuador in May, 2025, as part of a state visit to attend the right-wing president’s own inauguration.

After the event Petro took a three-day visit to the coastal city of Manta to rest and write his book, the Colombian president later explained.

But this hiatus from the public eye – Petro is rarely out of the spotlight – and his choice of destination sparked rumors that the Colombian president was holding secret meetings with underworld figures. Manta is both a tourist destination with Pacific beaches and the ground zero for violent armed gangs that control Ecuador’s drug trafficking.

Rumors started with unfounded comments by Ecuadorian politicians that Petro was “holed up” in a luxury house on the coast, adding tantalizing details that officials “could not confirm or deny” that Fito or persons related to the gang leader were present.

“What we know is that Gustavo Petro was in Manta inside a house for his entire stay. We can’t confirm whether Fito was there. It’s been said that certain political figures were with him,” Ecuador’s Interior Minister John Reimberg stated to news media at the time.

“He arrived at a luxury house and stayed there for two days. He never left, not even to eat. He was locked inside. I can’t say who he met with.”

Manta on his mind

Noboa reinforced the slurs this week, stating without evidence that the house rented in Manta was “directly or indirectly linked to drug trafficking”.

The Colombian president “never has any real explanations for his actions”, pressed Noboa, suggesting the book writing was a cover for more suspicious motives. But he failed to provide any motive as to why Petro would want to meet with Fito or his associates from Los Choneros gang, Ecuador’s most violent armed group.

Fito has been likened to Mexico’s El Chapo, with a history of repeated prison breaks. The career criminal was re-arrested again in Manta in June last year – a month after Petro’s visit – hiding in a bunker, and has since been extradited to the U.S.

For his part, Petro hit back claiming the Ecuadorian president had been himself been well aware of his plans to holiday in Manta, a visit accompanied by the Ecuadorian army and a Colombian security detail. These and other witnesses could vouch for his book writing, he said.

“I don’t know if going anywhere in Ecuador raises suspicions of shady dealings. Manta is a beautiful place worth visiting.”

Petro stayed in a “wooden cabin with a sea view”, he said, and not the luxury condominium conjured up by Noboa.  

Petro linked Noboa’s verbal attacks on the recent trade war between Colombia and Ecuador and Petro’s request that Noboa released former Ecuadorian vice president Jorge Glas currently jailed for corruption.

See also: Ecuador doubles trade tariffs on Colombia to 100 per cent.

Both disputes have put relations between the two countries at rock bottom.

Behind those disagreements lie long-standing accusations by Ecuador that Colombia has exported violence and criminality over the shared border during Petro’s tenure, a claim supported by a recent report by Amazon Underworld.

Illegal drugs passing through Ecuador came mostly from Colombia, said the report, and Colombian armed groups like the Comandos de La Frontera had established a permanent presence on the Ecuadorian side of the border.

Political prisoner

The high tariffs imposed by Ecuador, which seem out of U.S. President Trump’s playbook, seem designed to punish Colombia for its internal security policies and Petro’s left-wing government at political poles from the Noboa administration.

The spat over Jorge Glas stems from the former vice-president’s jailing after being found guilty of corruption in public office.

Glas was VP to left-wing leader and former president Rafael Correa, and accused of corruption in contracting cases. In 2017 he was jailed for six years. After his release was again accused of fresh crimes related to corruption.

Faced with these new accusations, in 2024 the politician took refuge in the Mexican Embassy in Quito but was quickly captured by Ecuadorian state forces who violated international protocols by invading the protected site, creating a diplomatic crisis with Mexico.

For his part, Petro conferred Colombian citizenship on Glas, declared him a ‘political prisoner’, and demanded his extradition to Colombia. Meanwhile Petro has been highlighting the former VPs stark prison conditions on social media.

“Just as I demanded the freedom of political prisoners in Venezuela and Nicaragua, I believe that Jorge Glas should be released,” he wrote, angering Noboa who recalled his ambassador from Bogotá earlier this month.

The rift between the two leaders also widened after announcements of joint military operations between the U.S. and Ecuador, with tension mounting after an air bombardment of the border left an unexploded bomb on Colombian territory.

In Sunday’s message Petro alluded to coordinated plots by political opponents in Ecuador, Colombia and “the extreme right in Florida” to drag up dirt from his Mantra trip.

Events this week should clarify if Petro has grounds to sue his Ecuadorian counterpart in a court of law, or if the battle continues on social media.

The post Petro says he will sue Noboa for slander appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

A plan to swap Colombian cocaine for guns was exposed last week when a Lebanese-Syrian smuggler Antoine Kassis – a cousin of deposed Syrian dictator Bashir al-Assad – faced trial for his attempt to send Russian-made armaments to ELN guerrillas.

The failed plot, which played out in a U.S. federal courtroom last week but seemed more suited to a Hollywood movie, risked putting military-grade weapons sourced from Syrian arsenals in the hands of the Colombian rebels.

In exchange, the ELN planned to send 500 kilos of cocaine disguised in a cargo container of Colombian fruit, according to U.S. Justice Department documents.

A federal jury convicted Antoine Kassis on charges of narco-terrorism conspiracy and conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization after a five day hearing. He now faces at least 20 years in a U.S. prison.

Kassis, 59, who had links to proscribed organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah, offered the ELN drones, grenades, assault rifles, missiles, mortars and heavy machine guns in exchange for the cocaine smuggled to a Syrian port.

He eventually hoped to sell the Colombian-supplied narcotics throughout the Middle East.

Captured in Kenya

The deal was initially brokered in 2024 before the fall of al-Assad but unraveled after a sting operation mounted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in 2025.

As court documents revealed, Kassis traveled to Africa in February last year after reassuring the Colombian guerrillas that the cocaine swap was still on – even after the unexpected fall of his cousin’s brutal dictatorship in Syria at the end of 2024.

Kassis claimed he could bribe Syrian port staff US$10,000 per kilo of cocaine to import the illicit drug through Latakia, a well-known route for drugs in and out of the eastern Mediterranean.

Despite the fall of al-Assad, he could still access “all the toys”, he told the Colombians, referring to the military-grade weapons.

Unknown to Kassis, DEA investigators had already infiltrated the Colombian end of the deal and sent an undercover agent posing as an ELN weapons expert to the crucial meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

Kassis was arrested with the help of Kenyan police and extradited weeks later to the U.S.

Meanwhile the suspected ELN counterparts, named by news website Infobae as Alirio Rafael Quintero and Wisam Kherfan Okde, were arrested in Colombia. They are currently detained in Bogotá’s La Picota prison pending extradition requests from the U.S.

Missed missiles

Evidence from the Kassis investigation pointed to a vast money-laundering operation based in Colombia that shifted million-dollar drug profits in cryptocurrencies across four continents. According to court documents, the plot roped in Palestine’s Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel.

The Kassis case also showed that the ELN was attempting to upgrade its weapons arsenal even as the armed group was engaged in on-off peace negotiations with Colombia’s Petro government. Talks are currently on hold.

The Marxist rebel group, properly known as the Ejército de Liberación Nacional, has been fighting the Colombian state since 1964 and is currently said to have 3,600 armed combatants, many based in neighboring Venezuela where it controls drug routes and illegal mining camps.

The latest round of peace talks, under Petro’s controversial Paz Total initiative, has seen the ELN expand in both territory and numbers within Colombia, with an estimated growth of 9 per cent in the last two years. Attempts to obtain Russian-made weapons via Syria are likely linked to that expansion.

See also: Peace Plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank.

Of note was the missiles included in the thwarted Syrian cargo. Though exact details were not given in the court documents, these could refer the portable shoulder-fired anti-aircraft weapons, highly coveted by Colombia’s armed groups for their ability to down helicopters and small attack aircraft used by state forces against insurgent groups.

In recent months Colombian armed forces have returned to aerial bombing of suspected guerrilla camps, a controversial practice that risks killing or injuring civilians and children. Bombing campaigns against dissident FARC groups in Guaviare late last year left at least 15 minors dead, according to news reports from the time.

And on February 4 this year, an air attack ordered by President Petro on an ELN camp in the Catutumbo region left seven ELN fighters dead, with no reports of child victims.

The ELN have in the past experimented with home-made anti-aircraft missiles, such as found in a hidden cache in Cauca in 2018, and some of their combatants are thought to have been trained in the use of Russian-made Igla-S missiles, of which 5,000 are used by state forces in Venezuela.

Hezbollah’s Latin American hubs

The Kassis case highlighted links between Colombian armed groups and the Middle East that include designated terror groups such as Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

According to expert testimony at a U.S. senate caucus on narcotics in October last year, groups like Hezbollah received funds via drug trafficking and money laundering in Latin America, with hubs in Brazil, Paraguay, Venezuela and Colombia.

“Hezbollah capitalized on a combination of weak local governance, corruption, and the presence of sympathetic diaspora communities to create cells and recruit financial facilitators,” former treasury official Marshall Billingslea told the caucus in October last year.

Billingslea suggested that Hezbollah could source up to a third of its income from Latin America, and until recently had close links through its Iranian backers Venezuela, now in flux with the forced removal of former president Nicolás Maduro to the U.S. in January this year.

Hard pivot to Colombia

But while its Venezuelan ties were more often reported, the Lebanese Shi’ite group had also made inroads into Colombian crime circles with a long history of deals, such as cocaine shipments sent by the Oficina de Envigado cartel, and drugs-for-weapons swaps with the former FARC guerrillas, he said.

In 2016, U.S. prosecutors brought charges against a Hezbollah laundering ring based in Medellín, according to reports in the Miami Herald at the time. Funds were connected to jailed Mexican kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

Billingslea explained that groups like Hezbollah also saw Colombia as a refuge for foreign operatives who obtained fake passports and ID cards. Recent turmoil in the Middle East could stimulate armed groups there to increase their interests in countries like Colombia, he said.

 “Now, with their Lebanese infrastructure in shambles, and with robust financing from Iran again in doubt, I believe Hezbollah will make a hard pivot to Latin America and to the drug trade in particular.”

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On Wednesday, the Universidad de la Sabana and the National Federation of Departments (FND) hosted the Governors’ Summit, a rare event that convened almost all of the frontrunners in Colombia’s presidential race.

Paloma Valencia, Abelardo de la Espriella, Sergio Fajardo, Roy Barreras, and Claudia López fielded questions from regional authorities about how they planned to tackle problems in Colombia’s provinces.

While Iván Cepeda, the leftist favorite, was scheduled to attend, his team pulled out at the last minute, fuelling the candidate’s reputation for being media-shy.

Early on Wednesday morning, governors and their aides began filtering into the heavily policed event in Chía, a municipality north of Bogotá.

The FND selected questions from governors which were then posed to candidates by the two moderators: El Tiempo Director Andrés Mompotes and his counterpart at radio station La FM, Juan Lozano.

The main themes of the day were tackling insecurity and armed groups, investing in regional development, and mechanisms to improve provincial representation.

For some governors, the event was an opportunity to redress an acute crisis; Erasmo Zuleta, who heads the local government in Córdoba, used the forum to highlight the ongoing effects of disastrous floods which began earlier this year.

“The emergency didn’t pass, nor did the tragedy. The floodwaters receded, leaving behind widespread damage; they took lives, homes, crops, and material possessions,” Zuleta told The Bogotá Post.

“Now more than ever, we need greater solidarity to recover from the damage,” continued the Governor, in a bid for help from the national government.

Another recurring theme was prison reform, following a recent scandal over a concert that took place in the Itagüí prison in Antioquia.

Abelardo de la Espriella, the firebrand criminal defense attorney and right-wing frontrunner, used the opportunity to push his tough-on-crime proposal.

“In Colombia, there are no prisons—there are universities of crime,” said de la Espriella, who took aim at the National Penitentiary and Prison Institute (INPEC), which he described as “a den of thieves.”

The candidate added that Colombia should look to El Salvador to develop its incarceration model, praising dictator Nayib Bukele’s draconian mass imprisonment efforts that have dramatically reduced crime and drawn condemnation from rights’ groups.

Security, more broadly, was also high on the agenda, as Colombia grapples with a surge in violence related to illegal armed groups.

“Today we are living in the grip of insecurity. They want to drag us back into the abyss we thought we had left behind,” railed Paloma Valencia, the candidate for the right-wing Centro Democrático (Democratic Center) party. 

Fears of insecurity affecting democratic processes have overshadowed the elections, with the United Nations issuing a warning earlier this year that armed groups could disrupt the vote.

The Valle del Cauca department has been one of the most heavily affected by the armed conflict, with its capital, Cali, rocked by a wave of bomb attacks by rebel groups in the past year. 

But its Governor, Dilian Francisca Toro, offered reassurances in conversation with The Bogotá Post: “We ensure that in every municipality and across all regions, law enforcement is present so that we can have free, democratic elections where there is no restriction whatsoever on the ability to vote.”

Toro also cited the elections on March 8 as an example of the success of security planning: “In Valle del Cauca we really had very peaceful elections, and now, God willing, we will have them again.”

Amid the mounting threat by armed groups, candidates De la Espriella and Valencia vow an iron fist, using military force to crush rebel forces. They model themselves after former right-wing President Álvaro Uribe (2002-2010), who teamed up with the U.S. to launch a total war on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). 

But leftist Iván Cepeda highlights the human rights abuses perpetrated by the government during that period, in which thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. He proposes to continue the current administration’s Paz Total – or Total Peace – policy of negotiating with armed groups.

But Cepeda missed the opportunity to make his case to the public, fuelling criticism by his opponents.

De la Espriella has repeatedly called on Cepeda to agree to a debate, but the leftist candidate has yet to accept.

With less than two months before the May 31st election, there are increasingly few opportunities for the candidates to make their case before the public.

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Fracttal, a maintenance intelligence platform that built its name across Latin America before relocating its headquarters to Madrid, has acquired TCMAN — Spain’s leading computerised maintenance management software provider — in a deal that deepens its roots in the European market it has been courting for several years.

TCMAN is not a minor target; founded in 1997, it is the dominant player in Spain’s computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) sector, with a client list that includes Acciona, Eiffage, Sanitas, and Quirón, and more than 250 organisations using its GIM platform to manage critical infrastructure, industrial, and healthcare assets. 

For Fracttal, which manages over 20 million assets across 60 countries, the acquisition is less a technology play than a relationships play – three decades of trust with Spanish enterprise clients that would take years to replicate from scratch.

The deal follows Fracttal’s $35 million USD funding round announced in January 2026, and the company has moved quickly to deploy it. 

The strategic logic is clear: the global CMMS market is forecast to grow at 11.1% annually through 2030, reaching $2.41 billion, according to Grand View Research, driven by asset-intensive industries facing mounting pressure to reduce downtime and meet tightening safety regulations. 

McKinsey research has also found that AI-powered predictive maintenance can extend machine life by up to 40% and cut unplanned downtime by half – the value proposition Fracttal will now pitch to TCMAN’s existing base of enterprise clients.

That pitch will involve upgrading GIM with Fracttal’s AI, IoT, and analytics capabilities. Whether TCMAN’s clients, who are accustomed to a local specialist with decades of sector knowledge, will embrace a more technology-forward roadmap is the central execution question.

“Integrating TCMAN’s expertise with our platform strengthens our ability to continue developing intelligent maintenance solutions and deliver greater value to organisations managing complex and distributed assets,” said Raúl Peris, COO of Fracttal.

For TCMAN’s founder, the sale marks a natural evolution: “For over 30 years, we have helped companies in multiple sectors better manage their assets,” said Eloy Ortega. 

“Joining Fracttal allows us to expand the reach of our technology and continue evolving our solutions in a context where maintenance is increasingly strategic.”

Fracttal’s trajectory is itself a notable story for this region. The company grew out of Latin America – establishing operations in Chile, Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico before moving its headquarters to Madrid as it pushed into Europe. It now sits in the unusual position of being a Latin American-origin company acquiring a European incumbent on European soil, rather than the other way around. 

For a region more accustomed to being the target of international acquisitions than the source of them, that inversion is worth noting.

“Maintenance is a key ally in building a more sustainable, safe and efficient world,” said Christian Struve, CEO and co-founder. 

“This union allows us to accelerate that transformation, combining decades of industry experience with advanced technology and artificial intelligence.”

Featured image: Courtesy of Fracttal

Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.

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The dismantling of a major crime gang which operated in Bogotá caused controversy last week after it emerged its leader was declared a peace negotiator under President Petro’s controversial Paz Total, or Total Peace, plan.

National police rounded up 23 members of the La Mesa gang in simultaneous operations in Tolima, Cesar and Bogotá. According to police reports, the gang was involved in serious crimes across the capital since 2012, including drug trafficking and murders.

News of the arrests was tainted by the fact that under the Paz Total process – the Petro government’s wide-ranging negotiations with armed groups – gang leader Gustavo Adolfo Pérez Peña, alias El Montañero, had his arrest warrant suspended under his role as gestor de paz, or ‘peace facilitator’.

The kingpin’s release sparked a furious response from Bogotá mayor Carlos Galán, who accused Petro of undermining the city’s efforts to curb crime.

Hoy en Bogotá anunciamos que, gracias a la Dijín, a la Fiscalía y a la @PoliciaBogota, fueron capturados 23 miembros de la banda “El Mesa”, entre ellos 8 sicarios. Mientras tanto, el Gobierno Nacional nombra al cabecilla de esa banda como gestor de paz y le levantó la orden de… pic.twitter.com/qiSmSoHgh7

— Carlos F. Galán (@CarlosFGalan) April 6, 2026

“While in Bogotá,…the prosecutor’s office and the police, with the support of the Bogotá mayor’s office, are working to capture and dismantle a criminal gang dedicated to serious crimes, the national government appoints the leader of that gang as a peace facilitator and lifts the arrest warrant for him,” he railed.

The gang was also suspected of being behind last year’s gruesome killings where pieces of the bodies of victims were wrapped in plastic bags and dumped on the city’s highways.

A free pass for career criminals like Pérez Peña makes fighting crime “incredibly difficult,” added Galán.

Dodging a warrant

Details of La Mesa’s criminal activities released by the prosecutor’s office this week showed the gang originated in Bello, Antioquia, but spread to Bogotá in 2012.

Court documents reported in local news outlet El Colombiano paint Pérez Peña as a hardened criminal; he has been imprisoned four times, including for armed robbery, homicide and illegal possession of firearms, but was freed before serving his full sentences.

His rap sheet includes attacks on armored trucks, notably a cash heist in Bogotá in 2003 where a policeman was shot dead.

Pérez Peña’s most recent jailing was in 2019 when he was sentenced to eight years for conspiracy to commit a crime and illegal possession of firearms. It was during this stint that he was freed as a peace facilitator.

And even while the La Mesa gang has been rounded up this week with members facing multiple charges and long prison sentences, its leader and founder continues at liberty.

Get out of jail free?

Inclusion of criminal gangs in the Paz Total process has proved one of the thorniest aspects of Petro’s flagship policies and a political hot potato in the run-up to next month’s presidential elections.

Since its inception in 2022, the government’s peace negotiators have tried to include some of Colombia’s most embedded crime dynasties under the acronym Estructuras Armadas Organizadas del Crimen de Alto Impacto (EAOCAI).

This Paz Urbana, or urban peace, initiative is based on the reality that in Colombia today lines are blurred between organized armed groups and engrained criminal structures.  Much of its effort has focused on Antioquia’s Valle de Aburrá, around Medellín, where many crime gangs took root after the fragmentation of the 1980s cocaine cartels.

The president’s office recently declared the process a partial success, claiming that the nominated peace spokespersons – many feared capos with violent histories – were now in a dialogue process which could “prevent further violence and prevent the resurgence of these structures”.

Many critics have predicted that – similar to the Paz Total process with large guerrilla groups – criminal gangs will leverage the negotiations to their own interests to gain time and territory or a get-out-of-jail-free card.

This week Medellín’s mayor Fico Gutíerez welcomed a resolution by the attorney general’s office to overturn many of the 23 nominations of local crime bosses as peace facilitators.

“The resolution removes 16 criminals currently serving sentences for serious crimes from the program. Seven remain eligible for the benefit,” he posted on X.

He also echoed Galán’s complaint that hardened criminals were being included in the peace process. “It is unacceptable that the Petro government has asked the prosecutor’s office to lift the current arrest warrant for homicide.”

Peace as a right

Defenders of Petro’s agenda hit back reminding that Paz Urbana was part of a constitutional process protected by Colombian law.

“Peace is a right, not a political strategy,” said Isabel Zuleta, a senator and key player in the Paz Total process.

The senator, who represents the government at the negotiating table with representatives of criminal gangs, accused the media and politicians of misreporting the negotiations.

“For nearly three years, a serious path toward de-escalating urban violence in Medellín and the Aburrá Valley has been painstakingly forged. Today, that work is being exploited by right-wing sectors that prefer to sabotage urban peace rather than acknowledge progress that is not electorally advantageous to them,” she said.

Zuleta also pointed out suspension of arrest warrants for gang leaders seeking peace did not free them of responsibilities for crimes they committed, nor would it stop judicial investigations.   

Meanwhile, a mix-up between Petro’s government and Attorney General’s Office emerged over Antioquia’s urban peace process: 16 of the 23 capos named as peace negotiators were already in prison, so suspending their “arrest warrants” was nonsensical as they were already detained in the high-security Itagüí Prison.

“We truly never imagined that a request would be made to suspend arrest warrants for people already serving sentences,” chief prosecutor Luz Adriana Camargo told Caracol Radio.

Prison party

For this judicial – rather than political – reason, Camargo revoked the suspension orders for the 16 capos already doing time.

“We are talking about dialogues inside a prison with convicted individuals,” she said.

The Attorney General’s office also corrected widespread fake news – amplified by right-wing presidential candidates Paloma Valencia and Abelardo de la Espriella – that the 16 jailed crime chiefs would be freed as part of the Paz Urbana negotiations.

In fact, there were no plans to release the IItagüí peace facilitators, clarified Camargo’s office.

But in a further twist this week the government froze the peace talks in the Itagüí Prison after revelations that the jailed capos mounted an unauthorized vallenato concert by popular singer Nelson Velásquez, reportedly costing 500 million pesos (US$140,000).

Parranda con Nelson Velásquez en cárcel de Itagüí no fue autorizada: Inpec investiga 7 funcionarios #LoMásBlu #MañanasBlu pic.twitter.com/FTU3exTVuF

— BluRadio Colombia (@BluRadioCo) April 9, 2026

For many commentators, the partying in the prison brought back painful memories of drug baron Pablo Escobar’s luxury lifestyle while supposedly imprisoned by the state in the 1990s.

Meanwhile the chief prosecutor Camargo came under fire for her decision to suspend warrants for seven other gang leaders currently on the run – including that of Pérez Peña of La Mesa.

This week the exact whereabouts of Pérez Peña was unknown, as was his willingness to engage in any peace process. According to a report by TV station Teleantioquia, the La Mesa gang leader was based in Madrid, Spain, while “moving around Europe as a sophisticated tourist”.

For El Montañero, coming home to Colombia, even under the guise of a peace facilitator, could be less of a holiday.

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Bogotá-based Remoti launched a “Workforce-as-a-Service” model and new app on April 14, 2026, making the case that managing distributed teams in Latin America requires dedicated infrastructure – and that the company’s nearly ten years of regional operating experience is the foundation for building it. 

The Remoti App consolidates the company’s services into three modules: Global Opportunities for talent matching, Workforce Operation covering payroll, compliance and contracts, and Marketplace & Financial Products providing financial tools to workers directly. 

“The world changed, and companies need new ways to build and operate global teams. With Workforce-as-a-Service, we’re allowing firms to integrate talent in Latin America with the same flexibility with which they build their technology in the cloud,” said Pablo Miller, CEO and founder of the startup. 

“At the same time, we’re allowing a new more structured, trustworthy and talent-backed experience in the region.” 

The bundling is a move away from the traditional staffing model and toward something closer to a managed HR platform with deep regional focus. 

The launch comes at a reasonable moment for the thesis: Colombia’s IT outsourcing market is projected to reach an annual growth rate of 7.37% through 2030, while the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs report found big data analysts, AI, and machine learning specialists will be among the fastest-growing job categories in the region – with 51% of employers calling for more public investment in reskilling. 

The harder question is differentiation. While others have built global employer-of-record and HR infrastructure at scale, Remoti’s angle is regional depth and operational ownership – WaaS is framed as a managed service, not a software product, implying the company absorbs more risk in exchange for deeper client relationships. 

“This launch marks a structural change in how organizations think about the redistribution of its operations and access to talent. It is the result of nearly 10 years building, operating and making a model perfect with international companies.” added Juan Felipe Velasco, managing director and co-founder at Remoti

The worker-facing financial products layer also points to a two-sided model that most competitors haven’t prioritized in the region. 

Remoti’s event included a policy panel with Congressman Antonio Zabarain, who sponsored legislation to promote Colombia’s tech sector – relevant context given that 61% of Colombian firms cite outdated or inflexible regulatory frameworks as a barrier to business transformation, according to the WEF, making compliance navigation a genuine value-add rather than a commodity service. 

Whether the WaaS framing holds up under the operational realities of multi-country employment compliance will determine how credible the platform story becomes.

Featured Image Source: A Chosen Soul via Unsplash+

Disclosure: This article mentions clients of an Espacio portfolio company.

The post Remoti wants to be the operating system for global teams built in Colombia   appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

The more than 100 female Colombian journalists who signed the ‘No to the pact of silence’ – a petition calling for answers about former president Andrés Pastrana’s appearance in the Jeffrey Epstein files –have posed 10 questions to candidates in the upcoming presidential elections.

The questions, shared on X last Sunday, intend to make the candidates take a clear position before the public on key women’s issues, including the mentions of Pastrana in the Epstein files. 

So far, only two candidates – Roy Barreras and Sondra Macollins – have responded publicly to the questions, which come amid what some have described as Colombia’s #MeToo movement.

“We asked 10 questions to those seeking the presidency,” wrote Ana Cristina Restrepo, one of the women leading the ‘No to the pact of silence’, in an X post on April 12.

The questions addressed the preservation of abortion rights, equal representation in positions of high power, protocols to address violence against women, and the commitment to the continuation, protection, and strengthening of related public policies in support of women’s rights. 

Among the 102 women behind the questions are public figures like: María Elvira Samper, a writer, journalist and philosopher; Patricia Nieto, professor at the University of Antioquia and journalist; and Maria Teresa Ronderos, Director of the Ibero-American Center for Journalistic Investigation (CLIP).

The list also includes Jineth Bedoya Lima, a pioneer of #NoEsHoraDeCallar (it is not the time to be quiet) a campaign that denounces sexual violence and urges survivors to speak out against gender-based violence. Bedoya is herself a survivor of kidnapping, torture and sexual violence by paramilitaries in 2000, with her case going to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

The first candidate to respond to the questions was center-left presidential hopeful Roy Barreras of the La Fuerza Party. “101 women signatories of #NoAlPactoDeSilencio, representing thousands of others, have put these 10 questions to the presidential candidates. Here, in this thread, are my answers,” he wrote on X on April 13.

Sondra Macollins, an independent candidate for the Digital Party, also answered in an X post on April 14.“I want to respond to what has been raised by #NoAlPactoDeSilencio because the truth is not negotiable,” she said.

“The time of the ‘untouchables’ and complicit silence is over. If there are names linked to Andrés Pastrana and Epstein, the country demands clear answers,” added Macollins.

The questions are seen as part of a new women’s rights movement which started in Colombia following the appearance of former president Andrés Pastrana in the Epstein files.

The materials included a photo of Pastrana and Ghislaine Maxwell wearing Colombian Air Force uniforms, alleged compromising emails, and testimonies where Maxwell described the two as friends and claimed to have flown a Black Hawk in Colombia. There were also reports that Pastrana flew on a private jet with Epstein and disgraced agent Jean-Luc Brunel, accused of recruiting minors for the late financier.

Later, #MeTooColombia was brought into focus following allegations by female journalists of sexual harassment in media outlets such as RTVC and Caracol.

According to the official ballot issued by Colombia’s National Civil Registry, there are 14 presidential candidates for the first round, which will take place on May 31. Four of them are women.

The post Colombia’s #MeToo movement advances with questions for presidential candidates appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Euthanasia planned for the numerous offspring of “cocaine hippos” originally smuggled in by Pablo Escobar. Not everyone is happy.

After years of debate over the fate of Colombia’s wild hippos – during which the feral beasts have multiplied in lush tropical rivers – the ministry of the environment has announced a plan to kill at least 80 of the African imports.

The non-native species was smuggled into Colombia by drug baron Pablo Escobar in 1980 as part of his collection of exotic animals – including rhinos and lions – which he kept at his ranch, Hacienda Napoles.

The infamous drug trafficker died in a rooftop battle in Medellín in1993, but a few hippos escaped his lowland ranch to find what biologists would later describe as “perfect conditions” in the nearby Magdalena River.

In the decades since around 200 offspring have spread over 100 kilometers (60 miles) of river and swamps bordering departments of Antioquia, Bolívar, Santander and Sucre.

But after years of procrastination over what to do with the wayward Hippopotamus amphibius – with various schemes to sterilize them or ship them to zoos and sanctuaries around the world – Colombia’s environment minister Irene Vélez said this week a cull was the only option.

“We’re talking of a process of euthanasia, which is the technical recommendation,” she told Blu Radio.

The plan was initially to reduce the population by 80 breeding individuals, then cull around 30 beasts per year which would systematically reduce the population.

Hippo boom

The controversial decision is based on a 170-page technical report by the Humboldt Institute and Universidad Nacional in 2022.

The report concluded that the hippos were damaging the tropical ecosystem of the Magdalena river valley by spreading disease and overloading their watery habitat with nitrates: the amphibious herbivores grazed the riverbanks to each munch 50 kilos of grass a day – but then pooped the waste out into rivers and lakes.

Without an urgent cull the population “could increase to 500 hippopotamuses affecting our ecosystem by 2030,” Vélez told a press conference this week. This boom would further put at risk native populations of turtles and manatees.

See also: Hippos need culling, says report

Then there what the report referred to as “hippo – human interactions”, such as a car hitting a two-ton creatures on the main Bogotá – Medellín highway – which runs close to their main hangout near Puerto Triunfo – and even cases of locals trying to keep young ones as pets.

The report also pointed out that hippos were aggressive and territorial and officially the deadliest large mammal – they kill on average 500 people in Africa every year – and attacked boats and canoes on the river aswell as people, cattle and horses around the River Magdalena.

In other videos posted online people are seen chasing them down the highstreet in the town of Doradal.

Hippo takeover

To justify the cull, Vélez said reduction methods such as sterilization were too difficult – anaesthetizing wild hippos is no easy task – and none of the seven nations initially interesting in receiving live hippos for zoos and wildlife parks had followed through.

The cull would start in the second half of the 2026 around hippo hotspots close to Hacienda Nápoles in Puerto Triunfo and Isla del Silencio, a river island near to Puerto Boyacá, she said.

This island is home to a large group one of which attacked and severely injured a farmer collecting water from the riverbank in 2020, according to a news report.  Colombia’s wet lowlands had perfect conditions for hippos, biologist Katerine Corrales told a Caracol news crew visiting the island this week.  

“Africa has droughts and adverse weather patterns. Here we have a constant climate with abundant water and resources which generates a faster reproduction rate,” she said.

In the same report local villagers complained that the hippos had “taken over the island” and restricted commercial fishing.

Poor Pepe

Not everyone welcomed news of the cull. Hippo protection group Comisión Protectora de la Vida de los Hipopótamos – founded in the town of Puerto Triunfo close to Hacienda Nápoles and which benefits from hippo tourism –  rejected the “terrible decision of the national government to authorize a hippo hunt”.

“In our municipality, we are committed to the protection and conservation of these incredible living beings. Hippos are an important part of our identity, and we must live in harmony with them,” said the group on its Facebook page this week.

It called a meeting in Bogotá to seek “non-violent” alternatives to the cull, such as a return to the plan of transferring live hippos to other countries.

Previous attempts to shoot hippos have ended in public relations disasters, such as the killing of Pepe in 2009. The large male hippo was slated for transfer to a zoo in Costa Rica after rampaging around Puerto Berrio.

But he was shot after a bungled attempt to capture him, and photos of an army platoon posing with his remains caused public revulsion, and a court ban on hunting hippos.

Pepe also highlighted the affection local communities had for “Pablo’s hippos”. For some folk the state persecution of the mammals was synonymous with the hunt for Pablo Escobar, still a popular figure among communities that benefitted from his largesse in the 1980s.

In fact, in the drug baron’s heyday the original hippos were kept at his Hacienda Nápoles in a public zoo and safari park where local families could tour for free. Today the hacienda and zoo is still there but managed by the state as part of a huge amusement park.

A grave in Colombia

This week, Minister Vélez was adamant that culling must form part of any population control.

It was global restrictions on wildlife trafficking – the CITES agreements – that had condemned the hippos in Colombia by preventing them being easily shipped abroad, she explained.

“It’s not enough for a zoo to raise its hand; the country must authorize their entry. Unfortunately, no country has given the green light. This administrative silence indicates that there is no interest in receiving them”.

It seems that putting Pablo’s hippos in overseas zoos is proving as difficult as extraditing the cartel kingpin himself. Like their progenitor, the big beasts face a violent end in Colombia rather than a cage in a foreign land.

The post Colombia to cull its wild hippo population appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

The Colombian National Police published a report this week summarizing the results of its counter-narcotics operations during the first quarter of 2026.

Authorities highlighted the results of their new anti-drug dubbed ‘Esmeralda Plus‘, which has led to the seizure of 124 tons of cocaine and 99 tons of cannabis.

The report comes as President Gustavo Petro faces pressure from the White House to prove his commitment to countering the illicit drug trade, which has been a source of dispute between the two administrations.

“We are delivering significant strikes against drug trafficking. Today we fulfill our duty to Colombia and the world with dignity,” said Brigadier General William Castaño Ramos, Director of the Anti-Narcotics Division, following the report’s publication.

In addition to the 124 tons of cocaine and 99 tons of cannabis confiscated, the police also seized over 450,000 gallons of liquid chemicals and 396,000 kilograms of solid ingredients used in drug production.

They also announced the destruction of 981 narcotics laboratories and the recovery of 99 ampoules of fentanyl.

The confiscation figures mark a significant increase in seizures compared to the first 100 days of 2025, which saw 104 tons of cocaine and 63 tons of cannabis confiscated. 

These figures serve as a response to the heavy tensions that preceded the White House meeting, when U.S. President Donald Trump personally attacked Petro, signaling him as a “man who likes to make cocaine” and claiming that Colombia was “very sick” under his leadership.

The report comes amid mounting pressure by Washington for the Petro administration to tackle drug production. 

Trump has accused Colombia of failing to cooperate in the fight against the narcotics trade and carried out a series of unilateral aerial strikes against suspected ‘narco-vessels’ off the coast of Colombia since September, actions condemned by the Petro as a violation of national sovereignty.

Furthermore, Colombia’s President is currently facing two preliminary criminal investigations in Brooklyn and Manhattan regarding his 2022 electoral campaign. U.S. prosecutors are examining alleged illicit donations from drug trafficking networks and meetings with traffickers intended to block extraditions.

“The United States has found a mechanism to pressure the government and extract the maximum amount of concessions regarding the fight against drugs,” Sandra Borda, Professor of Political Science at the University of the Andes, told The Bogotá Post. 

While the Colombian government appears to have stepped up its counter-narcotics operations amid U.S. pressure, some say this may not be enough to appease the White House.

“For Washington, these technical results are necessary, but they aren’t enough to fully restore trust,” Nelson Poveda, a political analyst and international affairs expert with experience in Colombia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told The Bogotá Post. “Still, these reports act as a bridge for ‘technical diplomacy,’ allowing cooperation to continue even when the political relationship is tense.”

In the report, authorities stress that ‘Esmeralda Plus’ attacks narcotics trafficking as a holistic system rather than just seizing drugs.

“We are directly destabilizing the finances, logistics, and operational capacity of these criminal structures,” pointed out General William Rincón, Chief of the National Police Service.

But Colombia has been excluded from key regional counter-narcotics efforts, notably the “Shield of the Americas”, a new anti-drug alliance promoted by Donald Trump.

The White House has historically favored eradication – the destruction of drug crops – as a counter-narcotics strategy. 

But Petro has consistently defended his “Total Peace” policy, arguing that the war on drugs must move away from just persecuting farmers and shift toward dismantling the financial backbone of cartels and taking down criminal leaders.

However, authorities reported 40 arrests for extradition purposes and more than 17,000 arrests related to drug trafficking so far this year. Additionally, the manual eradication of around 2,000 hectares of illicit crops shows that the Colombian administration is maintaining a mixed offensive that combines social policy with high-impact law enforcement.

With the 2026 electoral cycle approaching in Colombia, Petro’s administration is under immense pressure to show that this humanitarian approach is not a sign of weakness before he leaves office.

The post Colombian authorities highlight anti-drug efforts amid US pressure appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

Colombia’s top Catholic official, Bogotá’s Archbishop Luis José Rueda Aparicio, marked Holy Thursday by washing the feet of transgender women and sex workers in the capital, in a gesture aimed at promoting the inclusion of marginalized communities.

Rueda carried out the ritual in the Santa Fe neighborhood, a central red-light area known as a “tolerance zone.” The ceremony was one of the Church’s Holy Week observances and drew community leaders, social organizations and local residents.

The washing of feet is a central rite of Holy Thursday (also known as Maundy Thursday), commemorating the biblical account of Jesus washing the feet of his apostles during the Last Supper. The act symbolizes humility, service and care for others, particularly the most vulnerable.

Rueda kneeled before participants to echo this tradition for the second year in a row. Last April, he performed a similar ceremony paying tribute to Sara Millerey, a trans woman murdered in Medellín earlier that year.

“May no one feel rejected, may no one feel excluded,” Rueda said during the mass he directed prior to the rite. In a statement for Noticias Uno, he added that “what societies do through discrimination is fracture”.

#NoticiasUNO| El Arzobispo Primado de Colombia, monseñor Luis José Rueda, lavó los pies a un grupo de personas de la comunidad trans y de mujeres trabajadoras sexuales en el barrio Santa Fe, zona de tolerancia de Bogotá pic.twitter.com/YpAXvuich2

— Noticias Uno (@NoticiasUno) April 2, 2026

Some participants described the moment as deeply meaningful. 

Valentina Rojas, a transgender woman who took part, said she felt “happy” and “loved” after the ceremony.

The gesture comes amid ongoing tensions within the global Catholic Church over LGBTQ+ rights. 

Pope Leo XIV has recently reiterated that Church teachings on sexuality and marriage are unlikely to shift in the near term, describing such issues as “highly polarizing.” 

Although he has emphasized that all individuals are welcome in the Church, he has ruled out immediate doctrinal changes regarding same-sex relationships or transgender identity.

Featured image: Luis José Rueda

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons

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Have you done your traspaso? If not, read on….

Colombia’s cancilleria (foreign affairs ministry) was reminding foreign residents this week of the 2026 deadline to transfer their old resident visas to the new 5-year electronic visa scheme.

“Anyone with these visas, granted under previous regulations, must complete the mandatory process before October 31, 2026, before the Visa Authority,” announced the government, referring to resident ‘R’ visas issued before October, 2022, when new visa regulations came into effect.

Failure to transfer your visa by October 31 could lead to sanctions or even losing your residency status.

And even though the October deadline seems far away, the Cancilleria are expecting a flood of last-minute applications. Our advice is: don’t leave it to the last minute. Government websites are clunky at the best of times and you will need at least one appointment with Migración, which will be harder to get as the deadline approaches.

To avoid last-minute panic, here’s a quick Q and A to get ahead of the game…

I have a permanent ‘R’ residents visa in my passport. Surely that’s OK?

No. Under new laws passed in 2022 (law 5477 to be precise), all R visas for long-term residents are now subject to a transfer every five years, which also coincides with the lifespan of the Cedula Extranjeria (Colombian-issued ID card). So even if the visa stamp in your passport says indefinida, you still need to do the transfer.

The traspaso applies to:

• All Resident (R) visas issued before October 21, 2022.
• Any new R e-visas after five years (the expiry date is written on the visa).
• If you change passports for any reason (expired, lost or stolen).

If you have a passport about to expire it makes sense to renew the passport before the visa transfer.

So, do I have to start the whole visa application process again?

No. The traspaso is relatively simple and can be done mostly online, directly with the Cancilleria website. Although touted as a ‘transfer’, in most cases you will be issued with a new visa number in an electronic format that will be sent to you by email. You can then print your own e-visa and carry it with your passport and store it in your phone.

Other steps require visiting your nearest Migración office.

What are the steps?

1. Obtain your Migration Movement Certificate from the nearest Migration Office.
2. Apply online for visa traspaso. Wait for the e-visa to be issued.
3. Register your new e-visa and apply for a new Cedula Extranjeria ID card online.
4. Make an appointment with Migration Office for your biometric data.
5. Collect your new Cedula Extranjeria ID card.

How much does it cost?

Around US$ 213 in total at current exchange rates. This breaks down to: US$25 for the Migration Movement Certificate, US$54 for the visa study, US$54 for the visa issuance, US$80 for a new replacement ID card (Cedula de Extranjeria).

What’s the Migration Movement Certificate?

Before applying for the traspaso, you need to obtain Certificado de Movimientos Migratorios, which is a printed certificate issued by Migración showing your entrances and exits from Colombia. The purpose of the certificate is to show your presence in Colombia. If you have been absent from the country for more than two years your residency status is automatically cancelled. You can apply and pay for the certificate online at the Migración website Formulario Único de Trámites page.

Be careful to select the centro facilitador (Migration office) that is closest to you because you must collect the printed certificate in person from the office. Also select the 10-year option for the certificate’s timeframe.

Does that mean hours of queuing?

Not usually. One you have applied online, Migración will send you an email within three days notifying that your certificate is ready. You can go to the office and skip the lines by showing the email to the door staff. The counter staff will then print off the certificate. There is usually no need to make an appointment.

Can I get the certificate from overseas?

At present, Migración is only giving the option to collect the certificate in person in Colombia. This is one way to ensure that the visa holder is resident in Colombia. The option to collect in an overseas – i.e. at Colombian consulates – could change in the future.  

OK, so what about the visa transfer?

Now you need to the visa website at  www.cancilleria.gov.co, and navigate to the visa page called the SITAC. Note there are English and Spanish pages (the Spanish version sometimes works better).

Fill in your details to enter the system, then select ‘Visa traspaso’ from the dropdown menus. You will also be asked to click on the timeframe when your original ‘R’ visa was issued. You will then be told what documents to present; these can be uploaded in PDF.

What documents are required?

This varies depending on your type of Resident visa and when it was issued, but generally:

• Scan of your original R visa.
• Scan of your passport main page.
• Scan of your current Cedula Extranjeria.
• Scan of your most recent migration entry stamp to Colombia.
• Scan of your Migratory Movements Certificate issued by Migración.
• Letter requesting the transfer, explaining the reason for the request (i.e. ‘para cumplir con Ley 5477 de 2022’).
• Passport-style digital photo meeting the specifications.

Holders of permanent resident visas do not need to provide any more information. Other types of R visas might require evidence that the conditions under which the visa was granted still applies.

How do I pay?

The fees are divided into a US$54 ‘study’ fee, which is paid on submission of the documents. When the visa transfer is approved you pay an additional ‘visa issuance fee’ of US$54. Payment is also online by Colombian PSE bank transfer scheme, or you can use Visa or Mastercard credit cards. 

Is that the traspaso done?

No. Once your e-visa is sent to you be email, you need to register your visa and apply for a new Cedula Extranjeria ID card within 15 days of receiving the new e-visa. The initial application and payment is done online, using the Formulario Único de Trámites page. Tick the Cedula Extranjeria box and select your nearest Migración office from the drop-down menu.

You’ll need to provide more information, scans, and an US$80 payment.

Surely that’s the end of it?

Nope. Now you need to make an appointment with the same Migración office to provide biometric data for your new CE. To make an appointment, first register with the website here.  Slots for the following week are allocated often at 5pm on Sunday, so try at this time.

If there are no slots available, take a screenshot of the appointment page as you can later use this as evidence to prove you were trying to comply with the 15-day plan (Migración sometimes sanction visa holders for not registering on time).

If you do not get an appointment within 15 days don’t worry; with your screenshots of the full agendas, Migracion are unlikely to complain. Everyone knows the system is overloaded.

What about my Cedula de Extranjeria?

Another delay: some people wait months for the plastic card, though lately the wait has been getting shorter. You can use your old CE or your passport in the meantime.

Should I hire a commercial visa company to do the paperwork?

The Cancilleria recommends applicants to apply directly for the traspaso directly via the website. However, commercial visa companies can assist with the paperwork but will charge a fee up to several hundred dollars. Try the process yourself before seeking professional help.

Just don’t leave it too late…

The post Long-term foreign residents reminded to transfer ‘R’ visas in 2026 appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

On March 22, American Airlines flight attendant Eric Gutierrez went missing after a night out in Medellín.

Less than a week later, authorities found his body in a river three hours away from the city. They concluded he had not died of natural causes. 

The U.S-Salvadoran citizen’s murder is the latest in a string of tourist deaths in the Colombian city famous for its nightlife. 

But, in conversation with The Bogotá Post, Medellín’s Secretary of Security, Manuel Villa Mejía, offered reassurances that the city remains a safe destination for tourists and shared tips to stay safe.

Is Medellin a safe destination?

Gutiérrez, 32, appears to have been a victim of scopolamine robbery, in which thieves use the toxic drug to daze and incapacitate their targets. For years, this method has been well documented in Colombia, which is believed to have the highest number of cases in the world.

Medellín has a reputation as a party city and, accordingly, is often associated with stories about scams, druggings, and robberies.

But Villa Mejía insisted that the city does not tolerate criminal activities: “Our message is clear: there is no place for crime in Medellín.”

He highlighted the city’s recent security strategy to tackle crime, including increasing police presence in nightlife hotspots, dismantling gangs, and enhancing video surveillance.

The Secretary of Security noted how safety in Medellín – once the world’s murder capital – has dramatically improved in recent decades. 

“Today is an example of how security can be improved through strategy, consistent effort, and institutional coordination,” said Villa Mejía.

He noted that the city’s homicide rate has fallen for two consecutive years, now standing at 10 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Villa Mejía compared this rate to U.S. cities like Atlanta (51), Washington D.C. (51), and Chicago (73). 

“Although there is still a long way to go—since the only acceptable figure is zero—these advances reinforce our commitment to continue working every day to protect the lives, safety, and peace of mind of those who live in and visit the city,” said the Secretary of Security. 

Tips to stay safe

While Villa Mejía defended Medellín’s record on crime, he also said that tourists must take precautions to avoid ending up victims of robbery or worse.

“We invite all travelers to enjoy the city at their leisure, but also to exercise caution and act responsibly,” said Villa Mejía.

He recommended that travellers use trusted transportation, avoid displaying large amounts of money or expensive jewellery in public, and stay in safe areas where police are present. 

Villa Mejía also stressed the dangers of meeting strangers, especially online. He added that travellers who meet a stranger in person should avoid accepting drinks from them and not follow them to an unknown location. 

“The main recommendation is to stay in control of your surroundings,” concluded the Secretary of Security.

The post Medellin reassures tourists after US flight attendant death appeared first on The Bogotá Post.

The startup ecosystem in Medellin has long been a leading success story for both Colombia and Latin America. In recent weeks, the progress of Medellin’s evolution into a knowledge-based economy and hub for innovation has gained even more traction. 

Globally, Medellin currently ranks at #145, according to the StartupBlink Ecosystem Index, and holds 5th place regionally in South America. On a national level, the strength and diversity of Medellin’s startup ecosystem is second only to Bogota. 

Now, the launch of a new official district-level ranking designed to measure local performance in science, technology, and innovation promises to strengthen the innovation sector in Medellin even further. The “CTi Ecosystem Pulse” (Pulso Ecosistema CTI) is an initiative from the Mayor of Medellin and Ruta-N will provide local organizations with granular data on their performance set against an official innovation benchmark. 

The benchmark being rolled out with the CTi Ecosystem Pulse initiative will support organizations in Medellin’s innovation ecosystem to benchmark themselves, make more strategic decisions, and strengthen their national and international positioning.

In addition, Ruta-N also announced that Medellin has been included in the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Network of Innovation Ecosystems, a platform that connects 17 cities across the Americas, Europe, and Asia to promote collaboration, shared learning, and the development of innovative solutions.

Here, the WEF recognized the role Ruta-N has played as orchestrator of the innovation ecosystem, connecting companies, academia, the public sector, and civil society to strengthen entrepreneurship. The organization has also been ranked 1st among the country’s public open innovation ecosystems in the 2025 Open Startups 100 ranking. 

It’s also interesting to note how quickly Medellin has been able to climb through the rankings in a short span of time. In 2025/2026, the city climbed 17 spots in global rankings and is recognized for having the highest growth among startup ecosystems in South America. 

The data, coupled with the new CTi Ecosystem Pulse initiative, suggests that Medellin is expected to continue with this impressive upward trajectory on a national, regional and global scale. 

However, this success story has been made possible by three central pillars of innovation: Academia, conferences and local investors. Let’s take a closer look at how these play out across the city.

University Support Nurtures Innovation in Medellin 

First of all, universities and academic institutions represent a core pillar of Medellin’s innovation economy.  

EAFIT’s Impact Entrepreneurship Center is one academic unit that has played an active role in boosting entrepreneurship in the city. In 2021, EAFIT University’s president, Claudia Restrepo found that less than 5% of the most impactful startups in Colombia had EAFIT alumni as founders. 

In response to the data, the university decided to take entrepreneurship out of its academic silo and connect it with the real-world ecosystem by creating the Impact Entrepreneurship Center, known as On.going. 

Four years after the initial survey, the center has incubated nearly 190 initiatives. In addition, 40% of these are now formalized ventures, showing why nurturing entrepreneurship in Medellin pays dividends in short time frames. 

Under the leadership of Director Tomás Ríos, On.going joined forces with EAFIT, Fundación Fraternidad Medellín and Universidad EIA to establish  U Ventures, the first VC fund in Colombia designed to invest in university talent. 

“Out of every thousand ideas, maybe four grow and scale,” Ríos explained in an interview with Ana Herazo of Contxto. “To have 40 large companies in the future, you need 10,000 ideas today.”

Medellin conferences boost international collaboration 

Events and conferences represent another central pillar within most innovation strategies, and Medellin has also spurred collaboration on an international scale through this channel. 

One example of a homegrown initiative can be found with Starter Company, today one of the largest startup events in Latin America. In 2025, Starter Company brought together 13,000 attendees from 20 countries, 340 startups, and more than 160 investment funds. 

According to CEO Juan Gabriel Arboleda, part of the reason why Starter Company has found such success is that they don’t try to mimic models from other parts of the world. Instead, they have built something from the ground up that works for entrepreneurs in the region. 

We can see numerous examples of public-private collaborations that support the rise of tech innovation in Medellin and bring international attention to the city. For example, TECH SPHERE was organized by software development enterprise Source Meridian, 360 Health Data and the Pascual Bravo University Institution. Mike Hoey founded Source Meridian and is one of the city’s leading international tech entrepreneurs.

The conference highlighted Medellin’s role as a catalyst for AI research in Latin America and brought together business execs, researchers, entrepreneurs, and professionals from across sectors and backgrounds to explore how AI can be practically applied to solve real challenges and scale impactful solutions. 

While local initiatives play an important role, we can also see the rise of international events choosing to host conferences in Medellin and South America and the region continues to be recognized for its contributions to innovation. 

Horasis, a global think tank headquartered in Zurich led by Frank-Jürgen Richter, held the Horasis Global Summit 2025 in Brazil. The event represented the largest meeting the organization has held to date, bringing together 1000 speakers from 50 countries, a testament to the draw of the region. 

Local entrepreneurs and investors solve real-world problems 

The final pillar to this success story lies in the presence of eager local entrepreneurs and investors from Medellin. Both the innovator and the investor are integral to the ongoing success of Medellin’s innovation ecosystem. 

360 Health Data is a platform built by Colombian tech experts to overcome healthcare disparities due to language barriers.

Its platform, Coralia Health, translates medical knowledge and resources into Spanish through tech-powered automations, meaning physicians in the region now have rapid access to up-to-date, reliable, and relevant information.

Without more support and funding systems like U Ventures to sustain ideas from the earliest stages, the pipeline collapses before it can produce results.

Meanwhile, local innovators have a keen understanding of the gaps in the market and the solutions can drive the most impact. 

As Medellin continues to rise through the global innovation rankings, it’s likely to encourage more entrepreneurs to stay and encourage more investors to back high-tech ideas.

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