Colombian state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol S.A. (BVC: ECOPETROL) (NYSE: EC) has announced several changes to its senior management as multiple executives serving in vice president roles step down.

Photo: Ecopetrol headquarters in Bogotá, Colombia (Credit: Dvalencia)

The following is the rundown of changes as described by Ecopetrol in a recent announcement.

Outgoing:
Alejandro Arango, who has been serving as corporate vice president of human talent, presented his voluntary resignation from the position, which was accepted as of January 18, 2024.

Incoming:
Victoria Irene Sepúlveda, current leadership and development manager, will be in charge of this vice presidency from January 19, 2024, until the date in which a new appointment for the position is made.

Outgoing:
Fernán Ignacio Bejarano, current legal vice president, will carry out his duties until January 31, 2024.

Incoming:
Rodolfo Mario García Paredes, current manager of new business and corporate legal consulting, will be in charge of this vice presidency from February 1, 2024, until the date in which a new appointment for the position is made.

Outgoing:
Pedro Manrique Gutiérrez, who served as commercial and marketing vice president, will retire on January 19, 2024.

Incoming:
Felipe Trujillo López, current product and petrochemical manager, will be in charge of this vice presidency from January 20, 2024, until the date in which a new appointment for the position is made.

Javier Cordova Unda, CEO of Canadian mining company Soma Gold Corp. (TSXV: SOMA), has stepped down as chief executive officer.

According to the company, this is expected to be a temporary move to “attend to personal matters,” and Cordova will continue in his roles as president and a director.

Executive chairman of Soma Gold’s board, C. Geoffrey Hampson, is acting as interim CEO of the Vancouver-based company, which owns two mining properties in Antioquia.

“The board of directors maintains full confidence and support for Mr. Cordova and will work with him to ensure continuity of management while he works through these matters,” said Hampson in a statement. “We look forward to his returning to his role as soon as possible.”

Photo credit: Soma Gold

Chilean low-cost carrier JetSmart Airlines has appointed Estuardo Ortiz of American Airlines to its board of directors.

The appointment marks another link between the two airlines, which have announced a codeshare on flights between Chile and the United States with plans for JetSmart customers to eventually have access to the global carriers AAdvantage loyalty program.

JetSmart, which has been pushing to grow in the Colombian market, praised Johnson, who serves as vice president and chief strategy officer at American Airlines, for his role in advancing the US airline’s strategy and corporate development.

“It is an honor to welcome Steve to the board of directors of JetSmart Airlines,” said Estuardo Ortiz, CEO of JetSmart. “He brings more than 30 years of corporate leadership and board experience. His broad business acumen will be a key asset to our expansion plans in South America.”

Johnson has already attended his first board meeting in Santiago.

“American’s partnership with JetSmart opens up a world of possibilities for our customers to have access to the largest network, lowest fares and best travel rewards program in America,” Johnson said. “I am thrilled to join JetSmart’s board of directors during this exciting phase of our partnership.”

Photo credit: JetSmart

Canadian mining company Libero Copper & Gold Corporation (TSXV: LBC) announced that it will consolidate the company’s common shares in an attempt to better position its stock in the market and attract more interest investors.

Overall, the company, which maintains a copper mining operation in Mocoa, currently has nearly 175 million common shares (both issued and outstanding) and the consolidation would cut this number by a factor of 10 down to roughly 17.5 million common shares. In its statement, Libero stated that the consolidation will be “on the basis of one new post-consolidation common share for every 10 pre-consolidation common shares,” per Libero.

The Vancouver-based company also outlined these details:

“Any fractional interest in Common Shares resulting from the Consolidation will be rounded down to the nearest whole Common Share. Registered shareholders will receive a letter of transmittal from the Company’s transfer agent, with information on how to replace their old share certificates / DRS statements with the new share certificates / DRS statements. Brokerage firms will handle the replacement of share certificates and DRS statements on behalf of their shareholder’s accounts. The exercise price and number of Common Shares issuable upon the exercise of Libero Copper’s outstanding stock options and warrants will be proportionately adjusted to reflect the Consolidation in accordance with the terms of such securities.”

Libero’s board of directors has approved the consolidation plans, which remain “subject to customary closing conditions, including the prior approval of the TSX Venture Exchange.”

(Photo credit: Libero Copper & Gold)

This article, produced by the Venezuela Investigative Unit, was originally published by Insight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

On December 17, 2022, José Gregorio Roa lost track of his wife and daughter, who had set out on a boat from the island of San Andrés, Colombia, headed for the coast of Nicaragua. Both disappeared.

Jacqueline Velazco Zambrano, 51, left Venezuela with her daughter Grecia Yarleni Roa Velazco, 21, hoping to join José Gregorio in the United States. But like many groups of migrants in the last two years, they vanished in the Caribbean Sea.

Photo: Colombian migration officials in Cúcuta, the point of entry for many of the Venezuelans who have migrated in recent years in search of new opportunities. (Credit: National Police of Colombia)

José Gregorio’s family are two of the nearly 8 million Venezuelan migrants who have fled due to the country’s severe economic and humanitarian crises. To help them leave Venezuela, the women turned to a “tourist advisor” who offered to take them to the United States via the Colombian island of San Andrés.

The island is 381 kilometers off the coast of Nicaragua and has become a popular migratory route in the last two years, as it allows migrants to avoid the dangerous Darien Gap bottleneck on the Colombia-Panama border. The Darien has become a common corridor for migrants seeking to reach the United States. According to Panamanian authorities, 770,085 migrants crossed the jungles of the Darien Gap between 2022 and 2023. Of them, 478,994 were Venezuelans.

José Gregorio arrived in the United States via that dangerous route three months before his wife and daughter. But Jacqueline and Grecia wanted to be more cautious and chose a different path. They did not expect that the alternative route they chose would also be fraught with danger.

“What I find the most devastating is that we don’t know what happened to them,” said José Gregorio.

The Journey

At first glance, the travel package and logistics that Jacqueline and Grecia found seemed perfect. Each paid a little over $2,000, which covered flights from the Colombian border city of Cúcuta, in Norte de Santander, to the capital, Bogotá, and from there to San Andrés, where they would be transferred by sea to the coast of Nicaragua.

Like many others, they fell for attractive advertisements on social media that promised to take them to the United States. For their journey, Jacqueline and her daughter Grecia contacted Franklin Hurtado, an alleged “tour manager,” through Facebook.

Migrant smuggling networks are usually made up of local operators, also known as “coyotes,” who ensure the transit of people between two or more countries.

According to José Gregorio, Hurtado seemed trustworthy. The women exchanged phone numbers with him, and were in frequent contact, often through video calls, as they prepared for the trip.

Jacqueline and Grecia arrived at the Cúcuta airport on December 9 and printed their tickets. From there, they were accompanied by supposed tour managers to Bogotá, where they spent one night and then flew to San Andrés. During that time, they were not allowed to interact with other passengers or people at the airport, José Gregorio recalled.

On the night of December 11, the women boarded a boat leaving San Andrés for Nicaragua. But a Colombian navy frigate intercepted their boat and sent them back to Bogotá. They feared that their journey was over, but at the airport, a migration agent helped them return to the island.

The business of smuggling migrants through the Caribbean has exposed levels of corruption among Colombian officials in key institutions, including the navy and Migration Colombia.

“At the airport, [an official] told them they could get out of there and that they could get them on another boat that would take them to their destination,” said José Gregorio.

Similar cases occurred in 2023. On December 5, authorities dismantled a migrant smuggling network that transported migrants bound for the United States, Canada, and Australia to San Andrés. The organization was made up of 19 civilians who recruited the migrants and hosted them in different inns. Five navy officers and a Colombian migration official were accused of failing to follow maritime signaling regulations, alerting the network to the location of military vessels, and affixing false stamps in the migrants’ passports.

Once they returned to San Andrés, Jaqueline and Grecia were moved from inn to inn by supposed travel managers for eight days, not knowing when or how they would travel to Nicaragua. Finally, on December 17 at dawn, it was time to take the second boat.

“They just told us that we have to get on the boat and that we are about to leave,” Jacqueline wrote to José Gregorio. Two minutes later, his daughter sent him a message that seemed to be the beginning of a farewell: “Daddy.” But the next message did not arrive, and since then, there has been no word of them or the other 24 migrants on their boat.

An Alternative to the Darién Jungle

“They planned to leave San Andrés, reach Nicaragua, and continue through Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, and present themselves at the border to seek an [asylum] appointment,” said José Gregorio.

The journey to the United States is often fraught with danger, and there have been many accidents in the Darien jungle and shipwrecks of migrants who have departed for the Caribbean islands from the Venezuelan states of Falcon and Delta Amacuro in unregistered boats, in poor conditions, and with excess passengers.

The International Organization for Migration estimates that, of all the routes, the highest number of missing and dead migrants corresponds to those who have crossed through the Darién, where at least 360 people have disappeared since 2015, according to data from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Of those who have left Venezuela’s coasts in unregistered boats, at least 187 are missing, though the actual figure may be higher, since the number of irregular migrants is often underreported.

Faced with these dangers, many have opted for the San Andrés route, which they perceive as safer than the Darién. The numbers back this up. According to Migration Colombia, since 2021, the number of irregular migrants detected on the island has increased, most of whom are from Venezuela.

But the events recorded in the last year show that this is anything but a safe route. Currently, there are at least four missing boats and between 100 and 140 Venezuelans whose whereabouts are unknown.

In Search of Answers

After losing contact with his wife and daughter, José Gregorio sought answers about their whereabouts from the tour manager they hired, but he got no response. After asking for days, his messages stopped going through, and he realized that the man had blocked him. Two months later, José Gregorio verified that the “manager” was still operating.

“Someone was able to contact him with another profile, and I was able to listen to the same man who talked to my wife and daughter and all the people who traveled with them,” he said.

Other criminals have found additional ways to profit from the desperation of migrants and their families. In the four days after the boat disappeared, José Gregorio and other relatives of the people on the boat were extorted by a man calling himself “the black boss of the Juárez Cartel,” who assured them that their relatives had been kidnapped in Mexico.

A year after the disappearance of José Gregorio’s wife and daughter, disappearances on the route between San Andrés and Nicaragua continue to increase. On December 20, 2023, Colombian authorities rescued 11 Venezuelan migrants on the island. Three days later, two Venezuelan migrants were found lifeless in Nicaraguan waters, while another 30 migrants were rescued.

Attention to this route has grown in recent months. In November 2023, Colombian Ombudsman Carlos Camargo issued an alert about the dangers to which migrants traveling this route are exposed. “Migrants face shipwrecks, abandonment, the disappearance of boats, among other situations that put their safety, integrity and life at risk,” he warned in a press release.

Despite this, José Gregorio has not given up. He has given statements to international media and has sought help from the Colombian authorities. But he has found no answers.

“I believe that they are alive,” he said. “I don’t believe that they disappeared as the result of a shipwreck because it is not possible that some 100 people have disappeared and not even one life vest is found.”

This article, produced by the Venezuela Investigative Unit, was originally published by Insight Crime, a Medellín-based foundation dedicated to the investigation and analysis of crime and security in Colombia and Latin America.

There are certain realities regarding Colombia that have been around for decades — and which I fear will continue long into the future. The weather is extreme enough to kill. The resources to construct safe infrastructure throughout Colombia have been stolen many times over by corrupt administrators, and it is the poorest who always seem to take the brunt.

Late last week, heavy rainfall caused a huge landslide and blocked a road in Chocó, one of Colombia’s poorest regions. The drivers took shelter and were almost immediately washed away by a second avalanche. This is a key transportation route that is still little better than a track — and which should have been developed years ago. Around 40 souls have been lost, with more missing. As they are part of Colombia’s underclass, the headlines will likely be short-lived.

President Gustavo Petro has promised $100 million USD to secure the highway, but it is way too little, way too late. He called it a “natural” disaster, but there is undoubtably a human element given the money invested previously to repair the road — to no avail. A common tale of corruption.

One sidebar issue here is that the airlines, not for the first time after a disaster, have once again been caught red-handed increasing fares and scalping those who need to get to the region. Hopefully, Aerocivil will take action but it remains an incompetent entity (something laid bare by the demise of Viva Air).

Elsewhere, the effects of El Niño are starting to bite. Ironically, considering the rainfall mentioned above, there are concerns over forest fires and reservoir levels have dropped to 66.6% (in August they stood at 83.3%). We have seen electricity prices rise already and, as demand rises — for air conditioning, etc. — and with supply moving somewhat away from cheap hydro ,there will be a secondary supply side impact. All this taps into the fight against inflation for the Banco de la República and the Ministry of Finance.

In macro terms, we have the latest from the real sector, followed by industrial activity and Construction data later in the week. All of them are for October and the reality is that there is little cause for optimism — at least until interest rates really begin to fall.

The National Administrative Department of Statistics reported the latest quarterly (September to November) informal labor information. Fortunately, it has fallen from 58% to 55.5% — but that still means that 12.8 million are working without benefits such as insurance, pension, and social security. Still much to be done.

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The new board of directors of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM) was defined and finalized during its first session under new chair Medellín Mayor Federico Gutiérrez Zuluaga, who was elected in October to run Colombia’s second-largest city for the second time.

In addition to Gutiérrez, better known as “Fico” and who previously served as Medellín mayor from 2016-2019, the board that was announced on January 11 includes eight independent members:

• Felipe Bayón Pardo

• Luis Felipe Henao Cardona

• Luis Fernando Rico Pinzón

• Josefina Agudelo Trujillo

• Luis Fernando Álvarez Jaramillo

• Elena Rico Villegas

• Alberto Arroyave Lema

• Gabriel Ricardo Maya Maya

Felipe Bayón Pardo is the highest-profile member of the board, having served as head of state-controlled oil company Ecopetrol from 2017 to 2023. Several others have served on the board of EPM previously.

“The board of directors as a whole has a wide mix of profiles that will allow them to take on the challenges of the organization and accompany the director in his management,” said the firm in a statement.

The first session also defined the five committees that will be included within the board: audit and risk; management and corporate governance; sustainability, strategy, and investments; IT & cybersecurity; and project tracking.

Photo: Federico “Fico” Gutierrez, the once-again mayor of Medellín.

Four science-minded Colombians have been chosen to travel to the United States later this year as the first participants in the Andean nation’s Youth in Science for Peace program.

Photo: Science Minister Yesenia Olaya Requene and President Gustavo Petro (center) along with the Youth in Science for Peace program honorees. (Credit: Minciencias)

On their trip, the young academics, who come from Buenaventura, Tumaco, and Quibdó in the nation’s Pacific region, will participate in educational sessions and generally benefit from visiting the science laboratories at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation.

The ministry is the sponsor of this Youth in Science for Peace program, which has funding of 3.9 billion Colombian pesos and is designed to benefit citizens between the ages of 18 and 228.

“You will be the ambassadors who will help us to elevate this program to each of the regions of Colombia,” said Yesenia Olaya Requene, Colombian minister of science, at the ceremony to unveil the honorees.

Cristian Meneses, who was selected to represent his home of Tumaco for his role with a Freedivers Pacific project, spoke about his work.

“Our project is to give workshops to young people to form underwater sports teams so that young people in the Pacific region can practice it,” he said. “Since these are sports for the rich, we want these to be [opportunities] for young people to get away from vulnerable contexts and also understand the importance of the marine ecosystem.”

He noted that the program will take different shapes depending upon where it is deployed.

“In Quibdo,” continued Meneses, “they want to make a kind of sanctuary of the only forest of fauna and flora. In Buenaventura, they want to make agriculture and fishing in the urban area with sustainability for the poorest houses … [This] can be an opportunity to see how majestic the marine ecosystem is and how to protect it — as well as offer our communities different visions so that we can be away from violence.”

This objective closely aligns with the Ministry of Science’s goal to motivate young people from Colombia’s Pacific regions to lead projects that use science to search for effective responses to local challenges, transform communities, and build peace with environmental sustainability.

“You are the vanguard to drag the rest of the youth towards these new horizons, where, undoubtedly, the Pacific coast, from being the poorest region of Colombia in terms of social statistics, could be the richest — not in terms of greed, but in terms of human development,” said President Gustavo Petro, who participated in the announcement.

Colombia has added a new medal of shame to its history of failure as an organizer of major sporting events.

First, it was the winning bid for the 1986 World Cup that Colombia later abandoned. Then came the nationwide protests during the pandemic that put an end to scheduled plan to host Copa America 2021 in tandem with Argentina.

Photo: A press photo released by PanAm Sports in August 2021 when Barranquilla was named host of the 2027 games. (Credit: PanAm Sports)

Now, most recently, at least for the moment, the country may have lost its bid to host the 2027 Pan American Games in Barranquilla.

The news hit on January 3 when the the Pan American Sports Organization (PanAm Sports) issued a statement that “its executive committee has unanimously decided to withdraw Barranquilla, Colombia, as the host city of the the XX Pan American Games” due to “several breaches of the host city contract.”

According to the organization, Colombian officials involved in the contract in October requested an extension to meet certain requirements. But that December 30 deadline was not met, per PanAm Sports, and it thus made the decision to strip the coastal metropolis of its hosting rights.

“Since the new deadline passed with no response, on January 3, 2024, the Panam Sports executive committee has made the unwavering decision to remove the rights to be the host City of the continental Games in 2027.”

Now, officials in Colombia, including President Gustavo Petro, are scrambling to reinstate the city’s hosting rights, which were initially awarded in August 2021, and chalking up the event to misunderstandings and internal mishaps that can still be resolved.

The Ongoing Campaign for PanAm Games Host Reinstatement

The Colombian Ministry of Sports was the entity tasked with paying the host city fees on time, and while the “why” remains unclear and the subject of ongoing infighting in Colombia, what is agreed upon is that the $4 million USD payment never reached PanAm Sports.

This actually wasn’t even the first missed payment. Ciro Solano, president of the Colombian Olympic Committee, affirmed in an interview with El Espectador that during the previous government led by President Iván Duque, a first payment due in 2021 was also missed.

This older history was expanded upon by Ernesto Lucena, then-minister of sports, in an interview in El Tiempo.

“I was at the Ministry of Sports until June 2021,” Lucena told El Tiempo. “The promise of the contract, as can be seen in the documents, was signed on May 30, 2021, and there the first actions during that year are stipulated: pay $250,000 USD, which is done by the city of Barranquilla, create the Games Committee, and start the negotiations.”

Regardless of the history, Petro, among others including the Office of the Comptroller, has asserted that the funding has been budgeted for and is asking PanAm Sport to reconsider.

Petro sent a letter to PanAm Sports  on January 5, and he has spoken with Barranquilla Mayor Alejandro Char to discuss how they can recover the event.

On January 9, in a press conference, Petro further explained that his government has always been willing to host the 2027 Pan American Games and that the government is prepared to submit the $8 million USD in owed fees. Petro said he was working to speak with PanAm Sports head Neven Ilic and even Chilean President Gabriel Boric.

“We have met and outlined a recovery plan for the Pan American Games in Barranquilla and the Caribbean,” stated Petro. “What we want to notify is that the $8 million, by way of concession of rights for the Pan American Games, are ready. They could be drawn at any time if the party to the agreement considers it appropriate. There is no problem to transfer the resources needed … but due to ignorance we did not comply.”

As of now, the 2027 Pan American Games has no venue.