This article, written by Sean Doherty, 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.

Colombian authorities are struggling to disrupt extortion schemes run by imprisoned Venezuelan gang members, mounting a series of recent arrests but failing to prevent those incarcerated from continuing their criminal activities.

Police in Bogotá arrested 17 individuals linked to the Satanás gang, accused of extorting local residents, national media reported on January 12.

But they were far from the first arrests linked to the gang. Residents told local media outlets on January 4 that they were still being targeted for extortion by the group led by Venezuelan citizen José Manuel Vera, alias “Satanás,” despite the crime boss and at least 79 gang members being behind bars since last year. Many of those arrested were hit with additional charges for continuing to carry out extortion schemes from prison.

Satanás began operating in Bogotá in 2013, according to Colombian police. He was arrested in 2020 but escaped at the end of 2022 and began extorting residents in at least two sectors of Bogotá, before fleeing to Ecuador in early 2023. He continued leading his group from Ecuador, and had expanded operations to eight of the Colombian capital’s 20 sectors by the time Ecuadorian authorities arrested him in November 2023. He was extradited to Colombia that same month.

Criminal organizations across the region have converted prisons into de facto operations centers, including the Lobos and Tiguerones in Ecuador, the MS13 in Central America, and perhaps most famously, Tren de Aragua in Venezuela, which multiple sources have linked to Satanás’ gang.

InSight Crime Analysis

Given that the Satanás gang has proven it can operate effectively from within Colombian prisons, locking up more members is unlikely to curtail the group’s activities.

Due to a lack of oversight and corruption, Colombian prisons have frequently been used as extortion “call centers,” using smuggled cell phones to contact victims. Prisoners may demand payment from residents in the territories where the prisoner’s gang has a presence. But they often call numbers at random from a telephone directory and, posing as members of a criminal organization with a large nationwide presence, demand payment be sent to a specific account.

Despite wardens’ attempts to stamp out extortion by blocking cell phone signals at prisons in Colombia, many signal inhibitors are currently out of use. Some have been removed due to obsolescence, while others were removed due to court orders stemming from complaints from nearby residents whom the inhibitors had prevented from making calls. As long as Satanás members continue to access smuggled cell phones in prison, thanks mostly to corrupt guards, those locked up can help maintain the gang’s revenue stream.

Authorities elsewhere have faced similar difficulties in dealing with Venezuelan gangs managing their criminal activities from prison. Security concerns forced the relocation of Tren de Aragua members in Chilean prisons, and the Venezuelan gang the Gallegos has continued to extort residents in Lima, Peru, despite the arrests of dozens of its members.

This article, written by Sean Doherty, 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.

In what Canadian mining company Soma Gold Corp. (TSXV: SOMA) (WKN: A2P4DU) calls an “important milestone,” the company has now started trading on the OTCQX Best Market rather than the OTCQB Venture Market that it had been trading on until January 12.

It will trade under the symbol SMAGF on the new market, which the firm says it has now qualified for after sufficiently demonstrating compliance with relevant securities laws in addition to following required corporate governance and financial standards.

“We are delighted to have met the stringent requirements set by the OTCQX Market, reflecting our dedication to upholding the highest standards of corporate governance and financial reporting,” said Geoff Hampson, executive chairman of Soma Gold, in a statement.

“The move to the OTCQX Market is a crucial step in our ongoing development to foster increased confidence among current and prospective investors,” added Hamposon.

We remain committed to creating value as we continue to grow and expand our operations and presence in the market.”

The highlight of the week was clearly the 0.45% inflation print for December from the National Administrative Department of Statistics (DANE) — which dragged the full-year figure or 2023 to 9.28%, below the 9.45% expected.

Banco de la República will now come under extreme pressure to lower rates by at least 25 basis points when the committee meets next. There will be ongoing concerns about the impact of El Niño on electricity prices — which are at up 35% year-over-year on the coast — but food registered its third straight monthly decline and transport only had a mild impact despite rising gasoline prices.

Fedesarrollo has been busy this week. The organization reported a slight improvement in consumer confidence for December from -20.9% to -17.3%. This was driven by a 6.6% improvement in household outlook, in all likelihood helped by the recent improvement in the consumer price index (CPI).

Final car sales numbers for 2023 were as poor as expected, falling by 30% to 186,222. But there was better news on electric and hybrid vehicles. They sold a total of 31,490, up 12% year-over-year. This number is coming from a low base, and 88% of these sales were hybrid due to the ongoing lack of infrastructure. However, there is at least a willingness to advance. As per much of the world, there is a huge rise in Chinese brands on the pure electric car market.

In terms of the exchange rate, the Colombian peso had an interesting week (closing Thursday at 3,929 pesos to $1 USD). It weakened on the lower CPI number before stabilizing —  and that was before the US inflation data print, after which it fell slightly once more.

Colombia’s currency, however, appears to be very much rangebound at this juncture.

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The US Embassy Bogota said today in a statement that it is aware of eight suspicious deaths of private US citizens in Medellin, in the last two months of 2023 alone.  The deaths appear to involve either involuntary drugging overdoes or are suspected homicides.  At this time, the Embassy does not believe these deaths are linked, as each involved distinct circumstances, however several of the deaths point to possible drugging, robbery, and overdose, and several involve the use of online dating applications.   

According to the Tourism Observatory of the District Personnel of Medellín, the number of thefts committed against foreign visitors excluding Venezuelans increased 200 percent in the third trimester of 2023 compared to the previous year and violent deaths of foreign visitors increased 29 percent.  Most of the 2023 violent death victims were US citizens.   

As a service to readers, this message has been reprinted in its entirety as issued by the US Embassy in Bogotá.

Criminals use dating apps to lure victims to meet in public places such as hotels, restaurants, and bars, and then later assault and rob them.  Numerous US citizens in Colombia have been drugged, robbed, and even killed by their Colombian dates.   

Over the last year, the Embassy has seen an increase in reports of incidents involving the use of online dating applications to lure victims, typically foreigners, for robbery by force or using sedatives to drug and rob individuals.  The Embassy regularly receives reports of these types of incidents occurring in major cities, including, but not limited to,Medellin, Cartagena, and Bogota.  These types of crimes routinely go underreported as victims are embarrassed and do not want to follow through with the judicial process.   

All visitors to Colombia should be vigilant, maintain heightened situational awareness, and incorporate strong personal security practices into their activities.   

The full advisory is available at https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/International-Travel-Country-Information-Pages/Colombia.html 

Actions to Take: 

Be cautious if using online dating apps in Colombia.   

If meeting with a stranger, you should strongly consider meeting only in public places and avoiding isolated locations, such as residences or hotel rooms, where crimes are most likely to occur.  

If inviting an individual that you just met to your residence or hotel room, speak to your door attendant/concierge beforehand and establish a policy as to what information your new visitor should provide before being authorized entry (photo of identification, etc.) and what process should be followed when your visitor departs. 

Tell a friend or family member of your plans, including where you are going, details of the person you are meeting, and the app you used to meet them.  Victims who are targeted via online dating applications tend to have their electronic devices stolen which often contain all evidence of communication with the assailants.  

Do not physically resist any robbery attempt.  Victims of crime who resist robbery are more likely to be killed. 

Trust your instincts– if something does not feel right, do not hesitate to walk away from a situation.  

Assistance: 

U.S. Embassy Bogota, Colombia 
Tel. +57-1-275-2000 or 601-275-2000 
[email protected] 
https://co.usembassy.gov/ 

U.S. Consular Agency, Barranquilla 
[email protected] 

U.S. Department of State – Consular Affairs 
1-888-407-4747 or 1-202-501-4444 

Colombia Country Information  

Enroll in Smart Traveler Enrollment Program  to receive security updates 

Three people, including a Syrian who recently became a naturalized Colombian citizen, were detained in Buenos Aires on January 2 for suspicion of involvement in terrorism, according to the Argentine government.

The Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that it was informed of the arrest of Chassam Naem Chatay, who was granted citizenship on May 17, 2022, by way of adoption, per the agency. According to the Colombian paper El Tiempo, the Syria-born man also holds a Venezuelan passport and is registered as the owner of a shop in Bogotá.

“The Colombian national will be provided with the consular assistance provided for in the Vienna Convention,” stated the Colombian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an official public statement.

Patricia Bullrich, minister of security of Argentina, said that the men are suspected of planning a terrorist action in the country and that the investigation is ongoing.

She also noted that law enforcement had been on high alert because at the time the nation’s capital was hosting the Pan American Maccabi Games, a 10-day sporting competition for athletes from countries throughout the Americas and Israel.

With some 175,000 Jewish people living in the nation, Argentina is among the countries with the largest population.

This article, written by Jeremy McDermott and Steven Dudley, 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.

Coca prices have collapsed in parts of Colombia amid record hectares of cultivation. Could oversupply do what years of eradication have failed to achieve, prompting coca farmers to switch to legal crops?

This is wishful thinking, as world cocaine prices remain stable even as new markets in Asia are developed by traffickers, with European mafias assuming a growing role in the global trade. 2024 will be the year when the cocaine supply chain catches up with record levels of coca cultivation.

The reasons behind the decline in coca prices in parts of Colombia obey three different dynamics: conflict in areas of cultivation, which creates uncertainty and keeps buyers away; the saturation of drug smuggling routes out of Colombia amid high seizures; and the extraordinarily rapid growth in coca cultivation, with which supply chains have struggled to keep pace. But we believe that during 2024 this gap will be closed, and global organized crime, especially in Colombia and Peru, will enjoy bloated profits.

“There is not much evidence that this is a problem of oversupply, but rather a problem of confidence because the rules of the game are not well-defined,” Candice Welsch, the Andean and Southern Cone representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told InSight Crime. “There are no hegemonic market controls, which generates uncertainty among producers who do not want to risk reprisals for selling their products to the wrong groups.”

A new round of fighting for Colombia’s cocaine trade was detonated after a 2016 peace agreement led to the demobilization of the country’s biggest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armada Revolucionarias de Colombia – FARC). The FARC had controlled over half of Colombia’s coca crops and the production of coca base, which is later crystallized into cocaine. They also provided a one-stop shop for traffickers, not only securing access to the raw material, but protecting drug laboratories, internal movement corridors, and departure points.

Now traffickers have to deal with multiple warring factions in areas the FARC once dominated: the eastern plains, the southern jungles, and much of the Pacific coastline.

Today, multiple criminal actors are slugging it out for control, including FARC dissident groups, the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional – ELN), and the Gaitanista Self Defense Forces (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), who can trace their roots back to the Medellín Cartel of Pablo Escobar. This contest is playing out at exactly the same time as the government of President Gustavo Petro is trying to negotiate an end to the country’s six-decade old civil conflict.

So long as a kilogram of cocaine in Colombia sells for $2,000 and fetches up to $25,000 in the United States, $35,000 in Europe, $50,000 in Asia, and up to $100,000 in Australia, the drug trade is going to remain vibrant and adapt to changes in supply, transport, and demand conditions. And it will adapt fast.

Potential cocaine production in Colombia alone has increased since 2018 by 600 tons. UNODC figures had possible cocaine production at 1,120 tons in 2018, and at 1,738 tons in 2022. This increase over just five years is worth $1.2 billion at source prices in Colombia, and at least $20 billion on international wholesale markets. This is a huge potential windfall for transnational organized crime and already Mexican and European traffickers are queuing up to get their share of the Colombian cocaine bonanza.

With the growing volume of cocaine shipments, seizures are up. The Petro administration says it seized 697 tons of cocaine in 2023, a 13% increase from the previous year.

Yet the seizure rate is barely keeping up with the increase in production, while the government policy to reduce eradication of drug crops means that potential cocaine production is still rising, even if, as the UNODC suggested to InSight Crime, coca cultivation is leveling off.

“Even if they are currently not harvesting the coca in some part of the country, the coca bushes continue to grow,” said Sergio Uribe, a drug expert who has worked with the US Embassy in Bogota as well as the European Union. “As soon as the market is ready, the coca will be harvested. There is currently cocaine stacked up in the supply chain, waiting for export. This is a non-perishable product that has a shelf life, if vacuum-packed, of at least five years.”

The US market for cocaine has remained relatively stable for years. The European market is still growing. Of the 10 largest seizures of cocaine in European history, five were recorded during 2023, according to an InSight Crime database. The largest single seizure this year in Europe was 10 tons discovered in the port of Hamburg in July, worth an estimated $3.5 billion at wholesale prices. European criminals are increasingly being arrested upstream in Latin America as they negotiate to secure cocaine at its source and seek to maximize their earnings per kilogram by arranging their own transport. The InSight Crime database also revealed that 38 senior European drug traffickers have been arrested across Latin America and the Caribbean since 2019, more than the previous 10 years combined, with Italians leading the tally, followed by the Dutch, and then traffickers from the Balkans.

Drug trafficking sources in Medellín, InSight Crime’s home base, have talked about concerted efforts to develop cocaine markets in Asia. Here there are strong middle classes with significant incomes, virgin markets ripe for exploitation. The traffickers consulted expressed no worries of international prices falling. They were focused on diversifying markets beyond the traditional destinations of the United States and Western Europe.

The UNODC also believes that the interruption to the cocaine production chain in Colombia will likely be temporary.

“The situation appears to be very temporary in the production enclaves and it is expected that once control of the business is defined, the production rhythm will resume,” Welsch said.

Control of the business will be achieved when one of the warring factions gains hegemonic control over certain coca-growing areas. Ideology now plays little part in the Colombian civil conflict, and different factions have already shown a willingness to work with foes in the interests of maximizing earnings from the drug trade. While conflict between different factions will continue in certain parts of Colombia during 2024, in others it seems likely that new front lines and cooperation agreements will be negotiated, allowing the cocaine business to flourish once again.

While coca cultivation has grown exponentially in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia have also seen increases. What is worrying in these two nations is how political chaos is pushing counternarcotics strategies further and further down the list of government priorities. In Peru, President Pedro Castillo was removed from office and imprisoned in December 2022, while his deputy and successor, Dina Boluarte, has faced widespread civil unrest. In Bolivia, a civil war within the ruling Movement to Socialism Party (Movimiento al Socialismo – MAS), between current President Luis Arce and former President Evo Morales, has hijacked the political agenda. Bolivia is preparing for general elections for the presidency and Congress in 2025. In Colombia, Petro has seen his approval ratings drop to the lowest point of his tenure. All of this means that there will be diminishing resistance to cocaine trafficking during 2024 in the main production nations, while transnational organized crime sorts out its supply chain issues.

A worrying development has been the establishment of industrial plantations of coca outside of the three traditional growers of Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia. Venezuela, Guatemala, and Honduras have now replicated the cocaine production system established in Colombia, with coca fields alongside laboratories and airstrips or close to other departure points. While still in its infancy in these nations, Colombia has shown that despite billions in US aid aimed at reducing production, once coca takes root it is very difficult to eradicate.

“Coca can now easily be grown outside of the Andes,” said Uribe, who is also an expert in coca cultivation. “Traffickers have now crossbred different strains that can grow under different conditions, with a much higher alkaloid content for more cocaine per hectare. Central America is now an ideal place to grow coca.”

The damage of the cocaine trade is not restricted to the producer nations. As interdiction in Colombia improves, traffickers need to find new ways of getting the drugs to market. And with there being no land bridge to Europe, maritime trafficking is the norm, meaning that ports with international container shipping are particularly sought after by transnational organized crime.

“We are seeing increasing volumes of cocaine moving by land into neighboring countries,” said a police analyst who was not authorized to speak on the record. “There is little resistance for drug shipments crossing into Venezuela for example, and so more cocaine seems to be moving towards departure points in the Caribbean.”

Perhaps the most sobering story of the dangers for any transit nation has been that of Ecuador during 2023. With the port of Guayaquil one of the principal contamination points for cocaine shipments heading to Europe, the country has seen its murder rate quadruple over the last five years and seen native organized crime, allied with Colombians, Mexicans, and Europeans drug trafficking organizations, undergo unprecedented growth. So much so that criminals did not hesitate, in August 2023, to assassinate a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, who was campaigning on a tough security platform.

Cocaine has long been the foundation of transnational organized crime in Latin America and the Caribbean. While synthetic drug production, illegal gold mining, human smuggling, and human trafficking, as well as environmental crime, earned billions for criminal syndicates in 2023, cocaine remains the principal driver of criminal evolution and earnings.

So, when those cocaine earnings can increase by billions of dollars, the threats to Latin America and the Caribbean are potentially very grave.

How many new cartel members can be recruited with increased cocaine earnings? How many officials can be corrupted, how many communities can be won over, how much more state penetration and criminal governance will we see in a region where democracy is already under siege? And how much more violence will be generated as different criminal groups, with state embedded allies, fight for control of the trade? Latin America and the Caribbean is already the most violent region in the world, with just 8% of the world’s population and some 30% of its murders.

Latin America faces a new challenge in an established criminal economy during 2024. While Europe has awoken to the threats the cocaine trade presents to the Old World, dedicating more resources and home and upstream, to fight the drug flow, the United States, long the dominant regional player in the fight against cocaine, has lost focus.

Fentanyl and migration dominate the political agenda in Washington, even as the country readies for presidential elections, while US influence in Latin America wanes, especially in the two nations key to fighting the cocaine scourge: Colombia and Mexico.

While transnational organized crime will focus during 2024 on the cocaine bonanza, politicians across the region are going to be distracted.

This article, written by Jeremy McDermott and Steven Dudley, 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.

New York-based ratings agency Fitch Ratings announced that it has assigned a long-term national rating of ‘AAA(col)’ to the Program for the Issuance and Placement of Ordinary Social Bonds charged to a global quota of up to COP2 billion from the Colombian Institute of Educational Credit and Technical Studies Abroad (Icetex).

The AAA rating of this program, which is the highest issued for Colombian entities, is tied to its wider AAA rating for Icetex and based largely on expected backing from the government “if required” due to the “important role of the entity as an instrument for the promotion of higher education in Colombia.”

In a note to investors, the big three ratings agency added that “the issuance program consists of several series and will be issued on a dematerialized basis in the main market of the Colombian Stock Exchange (BVC) in multiple subseries at variable and fixed rates denominated in Colombian pesos or in units of real value (UVR) and for terms between one year and 15 years, as determined in the respective Notice of Public Offering.”

Overall, Fitch Ratings stated that the “should be made in low-risk, high-liquidity financial instruments.”

“The proceeds of the placement will be aligned with the Social Bond Principles (PBS) of the International Capital Market Association and may be allocated one hundred percent (100%) to the financing by Icetex of eligible social projects that meet the eligibility criteria defined in the Information Prospectus, either through new disbursements and/or the replacement of liabilities acquired for the financing of eligible populations. On a temporary basis, the proceeds from the placement of the issue may be invested while its destination materializes. The investment should be made in low-risk, high-liquidity financial instruments.”

(Photo credit: Icetex)

A whirlwind was unleashed in Colombia after Labor Minister Inés Ramírez said in a press conference that “the conditions in which these women work are not the best” at Seatech International’s seafood production plant in Cartagena, claiming that some workers have to wear diapers because they do not have the necessary time to go to the bathroom.

The company, which is best known for is Van Camps brand of tuna, has been under fire since a worker at the plant, Alicia Cardiles, submitted a video that was first seen in Congress during a debate about the mistreatment of employees by various companies in Colombia.

“This company, Seatech International, where they make Van Camp’s tuna, is forcing us to use disposable diapers because they deduct going to the bathroom from our salaries,” said Cardiles in the video that went viral on social media after the session. “This is causing us future diseases in our reproductive system, urinary infections that in the future can turn into cancer.”

Seatech has denied the claims and filed a criminal complaint for slander against Cardiles.

“Seatech categorically rejects the unfounded claims made by the Minister of Labor Gloria Inés Ramírez about the working conditions of our employees,” stated the companye. “A company cannot be attacked and stigmatized in this way … The company and its 1,800 workers, reiterate that what was stated is not true and will proceed to defend itself against this attack under the law and the regulations in force in Colombia.” 

The lawyer spoke to Caracol Radio and said that there is no order to wear diapers, but rather working conditions that have induced some workers to wear diapers to avoid having the time they use the bathroom deducted from their salary. In addition, the lawyer presented documents showing that the company has paid fractions of days to its employees. Although the document does not specify the reason for not recognizing full days of work, the data fits with the complaint.

The Ministry of Labor announced that is conducting an investigation, noting that there have already been eight sanctions taken against the Seatech and a partner company for workplace violations. There are at least another 10 open claims of violations including potential labor code violations of withholding worker salaries without their authorization and “illegal deduction in salaries due to time control for physiological needs.”

Colombia has been home for a long time. Despite my aspirations for the country, what I’ve learned since 2005 is that Colombia will never “make it” — at least not in my lifetime.

It is a sad reality, driven largely by the ruling elite — who utterly dominate politics, business, federations, and the institutions — and who have little-to-no interest in changing the status quo. In the end, it suits them just the way it is.

Countless articles appear related to leveling up across genres and the economic divide. But most are lip service only. Federations propose a better life for all, but only if doesn’t impact the bottom line. Women’s forums constantly shake the tree for the ladies of Colombia, but in reality they are talking only about those who are already part of that same elite. As for the politicians, their level of ineptitude speaks for itself.

The Edelman Trust categorizes Colombia as one of only five countries that is “severely polarized.” With respect to the United States, Sweden, and Spain, their divisions are first-world problems, while South Africa is a more rational bed fellow.

Colombia doesn’t have a racial divide to overcome. It is 90% economic. A country where 1% own over 80% and that has arguably the best growing climate on planet earth — but has millions upon millions who cannot feed themselves three times a day. No one wants a communist manifesto, but decades of land theft needs to be reversed or that land needs to be productive. Currently just 13% of Colombia’s 32 million usabale hectares are being used. That is simply wrong.

Education, incredibly, is not a right in Colombia. That needs to change within the reform in 2024. A person’s capability to better themselves cannot depend on their bank balance. Colombia needs much more human talent if it is to thrive, but there are those who fear that. I have seen, first hand, classism when it comes to employing graduates in Colombia. This Dickensian thought process has to end.

President Gustavo Petro is no messiah — but neither is he the devil. He has done a better job on the economy than most expected and perhaps those most disappointed in him are the most needy who had such high hopes of reform. His error has been to try too much.

Again, the ruling elite in general understand the need for change. But only on their terms.

There are complaints about the green economy Petro is advancing but no complaints when corporations return from COP28 supporting the same ideas. Equally with Ecopetrol, the reality is that Colombia is a fading oil producer. It’s the way of the world — so why not take advantage of the largest reserves just over the border in Venezuela? If Duque or Uribe had advanced the idea they would have been anointed with savior status.

Those of us who have chosen to live in Colombia do so for a variety of reasons.

But the longer you live here the more frustrating it is to watch a first-world country dining at a third-world table.

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Late last year, the Colombian government announced that group led by different state agencies will investigate, in the depths of the sea, the secrets of one of the most important treasures in the world: wreckage of the Spanish San José galleon.

The location of the galleon, which sank in 1708 near Cartagena, is a state secret and the value of the treasure on board has been estimated to be worth billions today.

Colombian Culture Minister Juan David Correa communicated the intentions of the Colombian government “once we treat those materials they will have to go to a laboratory at the Navy headquarters … between March, April, and May,” said Correa. “Ad I say those three months, because the behavior of the sea is very important in this process, and that has been explained to me by the Navy.”

The cross-institution group will be formed by the Ministry of Culture, Art, and Knowledge; the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH); the General Maritime Directorate; the Colombian Navy; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; and the National Agency for the Legal Defense of the State (ADJE).

According to the Ministry of Culture, it will represent high-level scientific and archeological research “following international parameters in the matter that guarantees the production of knowledge and its value as an asset of cultural interest.”

But the debate still continues. A letter, published in its entirety by the newspaper El Espectador, signed by several academics, calls for ongoing dialogue regarding research. And Correa has agreed with them.

The most important request made calls for “the establishment of a public/private alliance to materialize the extraction of the pieces that are part of the archaeological context of the San José galleon is extremely inconvenient for the protection and better knowledge of the submerged cultural heritage of the country. With the legal and administrative figure of the public/private partnership, typical of the development of road infrastructures by concession, it is intended to deal with an absolutely different matter, such as the research, conservation, preservation and management of the nation’s cultural heritage.” 

On December 27, Francisco Hernando Muñoz Atuesta, general director of the Veeduría Nacional del Patrimonio Cultural Sumergido de Colombia (VNPCS), asked President Gustavo Petro in a letter to not  advance any exploration in the San José galleon due to a “presumed looting of the archaeological context,” which requires “the judicial inspection of the place of the facts” to be carried out before the expedition.

The fear of the VNPCS is that the scientific investigation may alter a scene of a presumed criminal act. “Therefore, it is imperative that the government refrains from any intervention in the archaeological context of the San José galleon before the corresponding judicial inspection is carried out,” said the organization’s director. “Any prior action could not only alter the scene of an alleged crime, but could also be interpreted as an attempt to cover up for those involved.”

As can be seen in the painting “Action off Cartagena,” an oil painting by English painter Samuel Scott (1702-1772) depicting the battle in which the Spanish galleon San José was sunk by English pirate ships on June 8, 1708, the galleon represents an important part of history — with a large sum of treasure onboard.

To all this is added another problem. In mid-December 2023 began the high-level tribunal that will define whether the State must pay a large sum to the US treasure hunter Sea Search, which claims that in 1982 it found the San José galleon and that up to 50% of its treasures belong to it.