Tecnoglass, Inc. (NYSE: TGLS) reported first-quarter 2026 revenue of $249.0 million USD, a 12.0% year-over-year increase and a first-quarter record for the Barranquilla, Colombia-based window and architectural glass manufacturer. Despite the top-line growth, net income fell to $31.9 million USD, or $0.71 per diluted share, from $42.2 million USD, or $0.90 per diluted share, in the same period of 2025, as elevated US aluminum costs linked to import tariffs, mandatory minimum wage increases in Colombia, and a strengthening Colombian peso combined to compress gross margins by 540 basis points to 38.5%.

Multi-family and commercial revenues rose 20.4% year-over-year, driven by continued activity across key markets including geographies beyond Florida, which has historically dominated the company’s US revenue mix. Single-family residential revenues were relatively flat on a year-over-year basis, with management attributing the result to the timing of order conversion into revenue rather than underlying demand, noting that order growth in the segment remained positive into April 2026. On a geographic basis, the US accounted for $237.1 million USD, or approximately 95% of total revenues, up 11.6%. Colombia generated $7.5 million USD, up 17.2%, and other international markets contributed $4.4 million USD, up 27.3%.

Gross profit declined to $95.8 million USD from $97.5 million USD in Q1 2025 despite the higher revenue base. The company cited an unfavorable revenue mix driven by a greater proportion of installation-related revenue, higher raw material costs — with US aluminum tariffs representing an incremental headwind of approximately $6.4 million USD in the quarter — higher salary expenses resulting from annual minimum wage adjustments in Colombia, and the effect of a stronger Colombian peso on costs incurred locally. Pricing actions and operating leverage on higher volume partly offset these pressures.

“We see a clear path to fully offsetting the impact of tariffs in 2027, when full-year pricing across both businesses and incremental automation savings are expected to be realized.” — Santiago Giraldo, Chief Financial Officer, Tecnoglass

Selling, general, and administrative expenses rose to $50.9 million USD, or 20.4% of revenues, from $42.5 million USD, or 19.1%, in Q1 2025. The increase reflected higher personnel costs from annual salary adjustments, peso appreciation, and higher transportation and commission costs tied to revenue growth. The period also included a one-time charge of $2.9 million USD related to Colombia’s *impuesto al patrimonio*, a government-imposed wealth tax levied on large corporations to fund measures addressing recent climate-related events in the country.

Adjusted EBITDA — which excludes non-cash foreign exchange gains and losses, the bad-debt provision, non-recurring charges, and equity-method adjustments related to the company’s joint venture in Vidrio Andino with Saint-Gobain (EPA: SGO) — came in at $61.5 million USD, or 24.7% of total revenues, compared to $70.2 million USD, or 31.6%, in Q1 2025. Adjusted net income was $34.6 million USD, or $0.78 per diluted share, versus $43.1 million USD, or $0.92, in the prior-year quarter.

Cash provided by operating activities was $6.7 million USD, a significant decline from $46.9 million USD in Q1 2025, driven in part by a deliberate build-up of US-sourced aluminum inventories — up $34.3 million USD in the quarter — as part of the company’s tariff mitigation strategy. Capital expenditures of $17.3 million USD reflected scheduled payments tied to previously announced capacity and automation projects. During the quarter, Tecnoglass returned $16.5 million USD to shareholders through share repurchases and paid $6.7 million USD in cash dividends. As of May 7, 2026, approximately $92.5 million USD remained available under the current share repurchase program. The company ended the quarter with total liquidity of approximately $425.0 million USD, comprising $91.1 million USD in cash and cash equivalents and more than $330.0 million USD in revolving credit facility availability, against total debt of $200.3 million USD.

The company’s order backlog reached a record $1.36 billion USD at quarter-end, up 19.1% year-over-year, extending multi-family and commercial pipeline visibility into 2027. Tecnoglass cited continued expansion of its dealer network and showroom footprint as supporting geographic diversification and market share gains, with vinyl product lines identified as an incremental growth driver broadening the company’s addressable market.

José Manuel Daes, chief executive officer, commented on the results: “First quarter results were in line with our expectations, with resilient performance across our key metrics reflecting the continued strength of our vertically integrated business model despite a dynamic cost environment. Demand for our product offerings remains strong, as demonstrated by another quarter of record backlog and healthy order activity, with momentum continuing into the second quarter. Our previously announced pricing actions are now in place, and the broad-based nature of industry cost pressures supports our confidence in executing these increases while preserving our competitive positioning.”

Christian Daes, chief operating officer, addressed the tariff response and the company’s assessment of a potential US manufacturing presence. “Our pricing initiatives and cost mitigation efforts are well underway, including logistics improvements, further automation across our operations, and ongoing supply chain optimization,” he said. “We are also advancing our assessment of a proposed US manufacturing initiative, with a well-located site identified and significant state and local incentives secured that strengthen the project’s potential economics if we decide to move forward based on market demand.”

Santiago Giraldo, chief financial officer, reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance and outlined the company’s tariff offset timeline. “Based on our strong execution to start the year, we are reiterating our full year revenue outlook in the range of $1.06 billion to $1.13 billion USD and Adjusted EBITDA outlook in the range of $225 million to $245 million USD,” Giraldo said. “This reflects the impact of the recently implemented 10% tariff on finished aluminum window imports as previously disclosed, which is expected to be partly offset in 2026 through pricing actions effective on orders from early May forward, with additional efficiency initiatives from logistics optimization and automation underway and expected to begin contributing benefits by year end. We see a clear path to fully offsetting the impact of tariffs in 2027, when full-year pricing across both businesses and incremental automation savings are expected to be realized.”

On the corporate structure front, Tecnoglass’ board of directors has approved a plan to redomicile the company from the Cayman Islands to the United States, subject to shareholder approval. If approved, the redomiciliation is expected to be completed during Q2 2026. The company stated that the move is intended to simplify its organizational and regulatory structure, improve the tax efficiency of dividend distributions, and expand its potential investor base to include funds and accounts limited to US-domiciled securities. Tecnoglass will retain its Miami, Florida headquarters following the change.

Separately, the company is conducting a feasibility study for a potential new US manufacturing facility. A site meeting project specifications has been identified and substantial state and local tax credits have been secured. The proposed facility is described as highly automated and intended to support future growth while also improving lead times, reducing transportation costs for certain markets, enhancing supply chain efficiency, and enabling the company to compete for Buy America-eligible projects and rapid-turnaround contracts. Tecnoglass expects to complete the purchase of land for the potential facility during Q2 2026, at an estimated cost of $20 million to $25 million USD to be financed through available credit facilities. The company noted that the land purchase does not constitute a commitment to proceed with construction, which would occur in phases contingent on demand, market conditions, and return profiles. The company’s 5.8-million-square-foot vertically integrated manufacturing complex in Barranquilla, Colombia, would continue to serve as its primary production base.

Above photo: Tecnoglass facilities in Barranquilla

Tecnoglass Inc. (NYSE: TGLS), a manufacturer of architectural glass, windows, and aluminum products for the global residential and commercial construction industries, has announced its financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2025. The company reported record full year revenues of $983.6 million USD, representing a 10.5% increase compared to the previous year. This growth was attributed to market share gains, geographical expansion within the US, and increased demand for vinyl products.

For the full year 2025, the company reported net income of $159.6 million USD, or $3.42 USD per diluted share. On an adjusted basis, net income reached $167.0 million USD, or $3.58 USD per diluted share. Adjusted EBITDA for the year was $291.3 million USD, accounting for 29.6% of total revenues. The company ended the year with a record backlog of $1.3 billion USD, a 16.1% year-over-year increase, reflecting sustained demand for its vertically integrated product offerings.

Dividend Announcement

On March 18, 2026, the Board of Directors of Tecnoglass Inc. (NYSE: TGLS) declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.15 USD per share for the first quarter of 2026. This distribution, equivalent to an annualized rate of $0.60 USD per share, will be paid on April 30, 2026, to shareholders of record as of the close of business on March 31, 2026.

In a strategic move to align its corporate structure with its primary market, the board of directors has approved a plan to redomicile Tecnoglass from the Cayman Islands to the United States. The redomiciliation is subject to shareholder approval and is intended to broaden the company’s appeal to a wider range of institutional investors. Additionally, management confirmed that a feasibility study is currently underway for a potential US-based production facility to complement its existing 5.8 million square foot manufacturing complex in Barranquilla, Colombia.

“Our geographical expansion, vinyl window offering, and market share gains continue to drive growth in our business.” — Christian Daes, Chief Operating Officer of Tecnoglass Inc.

The company also highlighted its capital allocation strategy, which included the repurchase of $118.0 million USD in shares during 2025. The Board has recently approved a $100 million USD increase to the existing share repurchase program, bringing the total authorization to $250 million USD. As of the end of February 2026, approximately $110 million USD remains available under this program. Tecnoglass maintained a strong balance sheet with net leverage of 0.24x and total liquidity of approximately $465 million USD at year end.

Operational highlights for the fourth quarter included revenues of $245.3 million USD and Adjusted EBITDA of $62.2 million USD. Residential revenue for the full year reached a record $403.4 million USD. The company noted that its acquisition of Continental Glass Systems assets in early 2025 contributed to the growth in multi-family and commercial segments. Detailed financial filings regarding these results have been submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission and are available via the New York Stock Exchange.

Looking forward to 2026, Tecnoglass introduced full year revenue guidance in the range of $1.06 billion USD to $1.13 billion USD. This outlook assumes continued organic growth and the benefits of recent investments in vinyl production capacity.

Above photo: Tecnoglass at the New York Stock Exchange (photo © Loren Moss)

Under the terms of the deal, the airline will receive brand placement on the official team jerseys. Additionally, the club’s fan interaction area, previously known as the Fútbol305 Zone, has been rebranded as the Avianca Fútbol305 Zone. This activation is intended to provide fans with direct access to players and team events.

The move marks a strategic effort by Avianca to consolidate its presence in the Florida market, which serves as a primary hub for its North American operations. According to Rolando Damas, the airline’s sales director for North America and Europe, Miami is a critical gateway connecting the US with Latin America.

Data provided by the carrier indicates a period of growth in its US operations. In 2025, Avianca transported more than 4,900,000 passengers to and from the US, representing an increase of more than 6% compared to 2024 figures. During that same period, the airline operated 34,200 flights within its US network.

Currently, Avianca operates more than 400 weekly flights across 14 US cities. Its Florida operations specifically include more than 100 weekly flights departing from Miami, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, and Tampa. These routes provide connectivity to destinations in Colombia, Ecuador, and Central America, as well as broader links to more than 80 destinations across 25 countries.

Miami FC executives noted that the partnership coincides with the development of world-class facilities in South Florida. Nathan Krum, the club’s chief marketing and revenue officer, stated that the collaboration is part of a broader vision to increase community accessibility and global connectivity.

Avianca is a member of the Star Alliance and is part of the Abra Group. The airline group includes several subsidiaries such as Aerovías del Continente Americano S.A., Taca International Airlines S.A., and Avianca Ecuador S.A.. In 2025, the consolidated group transported approximately 37,000,000 customers globally, operating a fleet of 140 aircraft including Airbus A320 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner models. Its loyalty program, LifeMiles, currently maintains a membership base of approximately 15,000,000 individuals.

The financial terms of the sponsorship were not disclosed, though it follows a trend of Latin American carriers increasing marketing spend within US professional sports to capture a larger share of the diaspora and tourism markets.

No hard working Colombian ideologically has any issue with the cocaine barons being cut off at the knees, however the current tactic of destroying motorboats with missiles from miles away, isn’t the way to go. They may well be up to no good, but with no evidence whatsoever, Trump and his War Department are only alienating themselves further from the countries of Latam. Both Venezuela and Colombia have seen boats attacked, whilst Ecuador have cited the death of one of their innocent citizen in another.

The question is why not stop one of these boats and prove what their ‘irrefutable’ intelligence is telling them ? Therein lies the dilemma for many – Colombian security forces have reported record seizures this year, it would be easier to quantify the situation if the US did the same.

Instead, we have no remorse from Trump, his peanut gallery in Florida or the henchmen who are ordering the attacks – from a nice safe distance. All the while, further inflaming the pre-election polarization in Colombia.

Fedesarrollo lastest October survey saw YE Overnight Rate expectations rise to 9.25%, where we are now, as the CPI estimate also rose from 5.08%-5.28%. Part of the reason for this is GDP which whilst unchanged (2.6%) for 2025, rose 0.1% to 2.9% for 2026. The same survey expects the Stock Market to continue rising despite already surging 56.5% ($ terms) YTD.

This ongoing economic improvement led to another dent in the deficit situation according to Departamento Administrativo Nacional de Estadística – DANE Colombia. August saw another $2bn added as Imports rose 5.7% YoY whilst Exports dropped 0.1% driven by an 18.1% decline in extractive industries.

Bancolombia also reported economic resilience, with real spending growing 4.72% YoY in September according to their own internal studies.

Away from this week the news is hard to fathom. What is true, rumor, propaganda, pre-election bunkum or influencer imagination…and it is only going to get worse.

Have a good day

Roops

President Petro called for a criminal investigation against President Donald Trump, which stunned many observers. The demand stemmed from a US military operation in the Caribbean, where missiles were fired at vessels suspected of illicit activities. Petro asserted that the occupants were not traffickers but “simply poor young people from Latin America who have no other option.” The US delegation reportedly exited the assembly hall during Petro’s speech.

“With the forgiveness of those who dominate the United Nations, criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials from the United States, including the senior official who gave the order: President Trump,” Petro declared. He also framed his speech from the position of a leader wronged by US policy, stating, “I speak to you as a president decertified by the same President Trump, without him having the right to do so.”

Gustavo Petro at the UN. Photo credit: Juan Diego Cano -Presidency.

The Colombian president’s remarks extended to broad condemnations, labeling the United States a “white and racist” country leading humanity toward “destruction.” His confrontational rhetoric was not limited to the US, as he also defended Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and controversially downplayed the nature of the transnational criminal organization, Tren de Aragua.

Petro seemed to call for an armed invasion of Palestine and against Israel:

“I invite the nations of the world and their peoples above all, as part of humanity, to unite their armies and weapons.

Palestine must be liberated. I invite the armies of Asia, of the Slavic peoples who so heroically defeated Hitler, the Latin American armies of Bolívar, of Garibaldi, who also had one in Italy, of Martí, of Artigas, of Santa Cruz. Words are no longer necessary in Bolívar’s hour of the sword of freedom or death, because they will not only bomb Gaza, not only the Caribbean, as they already do, but also humanity that cries out for freedom, because from Washington and NATO, they are killing democracy and reviving tyranny and totalitarianism on a global level.

We must raise the red and black flag of freedom or death that Bolívar raised, without forgetting the white color he raised alongside the red and black, the color of peace as hope for life on earth and in the heart of humanity. The United States no longer teaches democracy; instead, it kills it with its migrants and its greed. The United States teaches tyranny.

The UN must begin its change by stopping the genocide in Gaza with the effectiveness of a world-saving army, voted on by the United Nations General Assembly without veto. After saving Gaza, we will move on to the plan to decarbonize the planet’s economy, so that it becomes a democratically constructed global project and establishes global democracy.”

Widespread Condemnation from Colombian Opposition

The reaction from Colombia’s political opposition was swift and severe. Lawmakers from various parties accused Petro of embarrassing the nation on the world stage and irresponsibly damaging crucial diplomatic ties.

Lina María Garrido, a representative from the Cambio Radical party, offered a direct rebuke: “In the name of the majority of Colombians, I offer an apology to the world for the shameful spectacle that Gustavo Petro is putting on at the UN.”

En nombre de la mayoría de los colombianos, le ofrezco disculpas al mundo por el bochornoso espectáculo que está dando @petrogustavo en la ONU. De entrada, les quiero informar que Petro está dispuesto a todo por unos cuantos "me gusta" en sus redes y por tener un reconocimiento,…

— Lina Maria Garrido (@linamariagarri1) September 23, 2025

Representative Katherine Miranda from the Alianza Verde party described the speech as “Ideologized, erratic, and highly confrontational against the US and Europe. He said nothing about Colombia, about the increase in homicides of public forces, recruitment of minors, kidnappings, and extortions.”

“President Petro didn’t speak like a head of state. He didn’t even wear the Colombian flag on his shirt. He’s only interested in the presidency as a podium, a platform to repeat his apocalyptic rhetoric, denounce universal greed, and launch a vapid call for a global revolution. He doesn’t care about his country. ‘Global leader,’ every state office repeats, while the president speaks to an empty audience,” said Petro’s own former education minister, Alejandro Gaviria.

Senator Carlos Fernando Motoa of Cambio Radical suggested Petro was acting as a defender for criminal syndicates. “Now he goes to the United Nations to act as a defender of the Cartel de los Soles, or organizations like Tren de Aragua,” Motoa stated. “This is unprecedented conduct that threatens to destroy our international image and put us on the side of the worst regimes on the continent.”

¡Lo de @PetroGustavo ya es patológico! No sólo defiende criminales con tarimazos en Medellín o mediante políticas infructuosas como la #PazTotal en el resto del territorio colombiano. Ahora acude a las Naciones Unidas para hacer las veces de defensor del Cártel de los Soles u… https://t.co/Qc4hkx1aqc

— Carlos Fernando Motoa (@senadormotoa) September 23, 2025

The criticism continued from Daniel Briceño, a Bogotá councilman for the Centro Democrático party, who posted on X, formerly Twitter, “Fortunately, this is the last time Petro will embarrass Colombia before the UN.”

Petro es un activista de micrófono cobarde y mediocre.

Mientras viaja por el mundo tratando de “solucionar” los problemas de la humanidad, en Colombia se arrodilla ante los peores criminales, los nombra gestores de paz y se acobarda ante la delincuencia.

Apátrida

— Daniel F. Briceño (@Danielbricen) September 26, 2025

Governor of Antioquia, Andrés Julián Rendón, sharply criticized Petro’s assessment of Tren de Aragua. Petro had claimed, “It’s a lie that the Tren de Aragua is a terrorist. They are just common criminals in the form of a gang, enlarged by the stupid idea of blockading Venezuela and keeping its oil.” Rendón retorted that Petro acted “more like an ambassador and spokesman for the narco-dictatorship of his ally Maduro and its criminal structures, than as the representative of millions of Colombians.”

Qué irresponsabilidad la suya Presidente @petrogustavo. Es sabido que le quedó grande gobernar, pero disimule y preocúpese por combatir a Mordisco, Calarcá, Clan de Golfo y cuanto bandido con el que está negociando. Son criminales peligrosos para el pueblo colombiano: desplazan,… pic.twitter.com/X2YvuMd55P

— Andrés Julián (@AndresJRendonC) September 26, 2025

Math professor and former mayor of Medellín and governor of Antioquia, Sergio Fajardo, called Petro’s words “lamentable.”

“President Petro’s performance at the United Nations General Assembly was, once again, lamentable. Trapped in his personal demons and delusions, instead of acting rationally in the country’s interests, the president reiterated his childish confrontation with Trump. Petro stopped governing a while ago and dedicated himself to campaigning, faithful to his anything-goes philosophy. The chaos grows day by day. He will leave, and we will all pay the bill. And what’s missing,” Fajardo tweeted on X.

El espectáculo del presidente Petro en la asamblea general de las naciones unidas fue, de nuevo, lamentable. Atrapado en sus demonios y delirios personales, en lugar de actuar racionalmente en función de los intereses del país, el presidente reiteró su infantil enfrentamiento con…

— Sergio Fajardo (@sergio_fajardo) September 24, 2025

Current senator and aspirant to the 2026 presidential elections, Paloma Valencia, said that Gustavo Petro has surrendered Colombia to violent actors. He has done nothing against drugs. Under him, Colombia has seen its lowest seizures in 12 years, homicides have increased by 8%, kidnappings have doubled, and extortion has skyrocketed. He has handed over the territory to the violent.”

Administration Defends “Disruptive” Speech

Members of Petro’s cabinet staunchly defended his address. Interior Minister Armando Benedetti praised the president’s words as a “courageous and historic intervention with a lot of dignity,” arguing that few leaders have the moral authority to speak so candidly.

Foreign Minister Rosa Villavicencio stated that Petro’s speech was “disruptive in the sense that he has said what many people think but do not dare to say.” She highlighted his critiques of migration policies that criminalize migrants and his call for a new approach to the global drug problem that addresses consumer countries’ roles.

Ex-Diplomat Warns of “Explosive” Consequences

Providing a more measured analysis, former Foreign Minister Luis Gilberto Murillo described Petro’s declarations as “quite explosive” in an interview with BLU Radio. While acknowledging the president’s apparent frustration near the end of his term, Murillo warned that such a stance “strains the relationship with the United States a great deal.”

Murillo emphasized the need for pragmatism in a volatile global environment, noting that a country’s capacity for maneuver is more critical than being right. “Colombia has to be very pragmatic in managing its relations with the United States,” he urged, pointing to the deep historical, economic, and social ties between the two nations. He suggested the speech could have been an opportunity to evaluate progress on his administration’s established foreign policy goals rather than seeking to assign blame.

The former chancellor also found the public discussion on the nature of Tren de Aragua unhelpful, arguing that such matters are best handled through technical and intelligence channels. The fallout from the speech continues to unfold, leaving Colombia’s political landscape deeply divided and its foreign policy at a critical juncture.

Petro’s full, translated UN speeches follow:

New York, September 23, 2025

Mr. Speaker, this is my last speech as President here. It’s already my fourth. In my first, I announced to the Assembly that a conflict could very well break out alongside Ukraine in Palestine. I called for a peace conference.

Those of us without bombs or big budgets are not heard here, but four years later, today, the horrific situation in Palestine led me to think that the same thing, or almost the same thing, could happen in the Colombian Caribbean, when they throw missiles at unarmed young people in the sea.

So now we are facing a different situation, perhaps more global. The barbarism today is global; today it falls upon all of humanity. The missiles targeted 17 unarmed young people in the waters of the Caribbean Sea, perhaps some Colombians. The persecution, imprisonment, chaining, and expulsion of millions of migrants. The missiles that fall on the 70,000 people in Gaza and kill them.

The lack of action on the climate crisis, whose words are being erased at Trump’s orders, is linked to and responds to the same cause. Migration is an excuse for a rich, white, racist society to believe itself a superior race and ignore the fact that its leaders are leading it, along with all of humanity, to the abyss of its own extinction.

They say the missiles in the Caribbean were to stop drugs. That’s a lie. Said here, on this very spot, in 2023 and 2024, were the years in which the most cocaine was seized, and more than 700 drug lords were extradited to the United States and Europe. I extradited them, and my government seized the cocaine.

And we didn’t fire a single missile or kill any young people. These were years in which I proved that voluntary substitution with coca leaf crops is more effective than forcibly eradicating them with glyphosate and using force on Colombia’s poor farmers. I replaced the failed and violent war on drugs with an effective anti-drug policy, which is different from confusing the dead substance with the greedy person.

But they need violence to dominate Colombia and Latin America. They need to destroy dialogue and impose and launch deadly missiles on poor young people in the Caribbean. Anti-drug policy is not about stopping cocaine from reaching the United States.

Anti-drug policy is intended to dominate the people of the South in general. It doesn’t focus on drugs; it focuses on power and domination. That’s why I speak before you as a president deserted by President Trump himself, without any right to do so, neither human nor divine, and without any mental reason.

They want to violate and coerce tens of thousands of farmers from the United States government, which is influenced by powerful Colombian mafia politicians.

Hundreds of thousands of Colombian peasants have been massacred, just as children are massacred in Gaza.

The massacres in Colombia were carried out by politicians who were senators, presidents, and ministers, linked to and bribed by the Colombian drug mafia.

At once allied with the far right in Florida, in the United States, and now allied with the Trump administration, allies for decades with the cocaine drug lords in Colombia—true scumbags, as the Italians say.

Anti-drug policy is made in Washington, United States, by allies of the cocaine mafia. I don’t know if Trump knows that his foreign policy toward Colombia, Venezuela, and the Caribbean is advised by Colombians who are political allies of the cocaine mafia.

I myself denounced these drug-trafficking paramilitary politicians personally, and for a decade in Congress as a senator. They tried to kill me many times for it. They wanted me not to be president and to keep me quiet, and now they want to prevent a new progressive government from continuing. And because of that, they almost denigrate me personally and slander Colombia.

The largest amount of cocaine in the history of the world has been seized in Colombia, and this government did it, and they’re making me a desert.

In Colombia, we have managed to stop the growth rate, the growth rate of coca leaf crops, which was 43% annually during the government of (President Iván) Duque, and I have lowered it this year to 3%, and they did not desertify Duque, who had a drug trafficker financier in his campaign, but they did desertify Petro, because he says things and says the truth.

Therefore, anti-drug policy is not for the public health of society but for the politics of power. They don’t want light to shine in Latin America and for the time of the people to come again. The young people killed by missiles in the Caribbean were not from the Aragua train—perhaps no one here knows its name—or from Hamas; they were Caribbean, possibly Colombian.

And if they were Colombians, with the apologies of those who dominate the United Nations, criminal proceedings should be opened against those officials who are from the United States, even if the highest-ranking official who gave the order, President Trump, who allowed the missiles to be fired at young people who simply wanted to escape poverty, is included. Young people on a boat, if they had an illicit cargo, weren’t drug traffickers; they were simply poor young people from Latin America who had no other option.

Drug traffickers live somewhere else, not in Latin America. Trump launches missiles at unarmed boats of immigrants and accuses them of being drug traffickers and terrorists, even though they don’t have a single weapon to defend themselves. Drug traffickers live in New York, right here, just a few blocks away, and in Miami.

And they make agreements with the (Drug Enforcement Administration) DEA, which allows them to traffic in Africa, Europe, Russia or China but not in the United States, a country that stops the growth of cocaine consumption without reducing it, only because its sick drug addicts went –and are sick– to consume the deadly drug of humanity’s counterculture in times of extinction due to the climate crisis, fentanyl.

This fentanyl is produced in the United States’ industrial apparatus, here, near here, and for consumers, it’s American self-consumption, resulting in the worst understanding of drugs in human history since we first knew wine, alcohol, or beer.

Fentanyl and gasoline addicts: the total poisons of life in the world. Gasoline is worse than fentanyl.

Only the Black people here, ancestral here, more than 20,000 years old, the youth, the women who don’t want to see their children die en masse; white, Black, of all colors who still think, people who still think, who don’t sleep under fentanyl or under lying television, and who can stop the tyranny within the United States itself.

And around the world, citizens are taking to the streets in California, in New York, in Philadelphia, where the bell of liberty was rung despite the armies Trump sends against his own people to intimidate them, in the states of free citizens, in the same states that are no longer united today in the face of the tyranny of evil, of the worst kind, the president of the United States.

Don’t they see that a million Latin Americans have been murdered among themselves, the majority of them Colombians? And another million Americans will die from fentanyl.

Ten years ago, cocaine killed 3,000 people a year in this country, due to poisons mixed with it. Today, fentanyl kills 100,033 times more. The United States has improved—or worsened—with 50 years of absurd policies, and is leading its society to the Dantesque death of the drug that kills the brain and lungs in this death of humanity.

Genocide in Gaza

Trump not only lets missiles fall on young people in the Caribbean, but also imprisons and chains migrants, and allows missiles to be launched at young children, women, and the elderly in Gaza. He makes himself complicit in genocide because it is genocide, and we must shout it out again and again.

This building is a silent witness, and an accomplice, to a genocide in today’s world. When we thought it was Hitler’s sole property, Trump doesn’t talk about democracy, he doesn’t talk about the climate crisis, he doesn’t talk about life; he only threatens and kills, and allows tens of thousands to be killed.

However, during my administration in Colombia, we haven’t increased the homicide rate. We have the lowest unemployment rate of the century in the country, we have the lowest poverty rate of the century according to our statistics, and we boosted our agriculture to 10% annual growth, and our industry to 5% annually, and tourists came like never before, by the millions, to admire our immense beauty.

In a land of beauty and natural, human, and cultural diversity, we seek peace by talking with drug traffickers and rebels. I’m not ashamed to talk, always talking to save lives, putting as a principle the total eradication of illicit economies and the eradication of coca leaf crops by the very will of the peasants who are tired of the violence.

We don’t allow ourselves to be bribed by drug traffickers, as happened under previous Colombian governments, and we’ve already voluntarily eradicated 25,000 hectares. We’re successful in our new policy, which isn’t about drugs, but rather about drug trafficking, which is different.

We are grateful to the countries that have helped us sow peace: Qatar, Cuba, Mexico, the Vatican City, Norway, Brazil, and Venezuela. We are not grateful to those who want to lead us to war among ourselves.

Listen, ladies and gentlemen of the world, Latin America is not just about cocaine, terrorists, or drug traffickers. Latin America potentially has 1,400 gigabytes of clean electric energy capacity annually based on water, wind, and the sun. The United States, in the north, demands 1,200 gigabytes of energy every year, which today is 70% fossil fuels, that is, based on coal, gas, and oil.

If Latin America develops its clean energy potential, it could clean up the entire United States’ fossil energy mix. Listen, all that’s missing is the money, and it would make the greatest contribution to overcoming the climate crisis.

Today, with almost no progress between the potential for clean energy and the enormous absorbent sponge of the Amazon rainforest, Latin America is the vanguard of humanity that could take the first decisive step toward saving the planet and all humanity. It only takes $600 billion to develop its potential.

Africa can do the same with Europe. The sum of this fundamental decarbonization aspect would give us $1 trillion 200 billion—or $1.2 trillion USD, as they say in English. This money is already in the coffers of the United States, Europe, and China, but not a single dollar is moving profitably.

Or worse, it may still be very profitable in terms of human life, including life in the United States, Europe, and China, but they don’t want to become interdependent with Latin America and Africa. They know that linking clean energy from Latin America and Africa to the fossil fuel economies of the North not only decarbonizes the planet and saves it from climate collapse, but also shifts global power.

The one who speaks here sometimes, but speaks every day, is doing so with bombs and not with words. Decarbonization is returning, a global democracy is returning to power, and the relations of production are changing, because life and humanity come first, taking priority over greed.

Greed is the poison of life; it is an antagonistic contradiction, as Mao Zedong (Chinese politician, philosopher, intellectual, military strategist, founder of the Communist Party and the Republic of China) once said, but not thinking about bosses and workers, but between greed and the very life of planet Earth.

According to science, we have 10 years to reach the point of no return. 10 years, and once we reach that point, nothing can be done. We will only observe the catastrophes and feel them, even in our own families, because it will be, because it will be, if you can tell me, irreversible, the extinction of life, including human life.

Irreversibility of the process, no technology, no political or social force, no human mind will be able to do anything to stop the collapse and we have 10 years left, says science, but here they don’t believe in science, said one of the most powerful in the world, they don’t believe in science and that is called irrationalism and Germany, the country of great philosophers, of Feuerbach, of Hegel, of Kant, was philosophically filled with irrationalism.

And today, the United States is being filled with irrationalism, and it was the prelude to Hitler in 1933.

The solution is to stop consuming coal, oil, gas, hydrocarbons, and quickly move to water, sun, green hydrogen, wind, but the word decarbonization now sounds subversive at the conferences of powerful groups of countries, the G7, the G20, and in Davos (Switzerland), the mega-rich, just as the word democracy sounded subversive five centuries ago.

Investing in decarbonization

Even here, in New York, Cartagena, Bogotá, or Paris, and even more so in Madrid, the sums I’m talking about here—$600 billion, $1 trillion, $200 billion—are one or two zeros higher than the amount promised by developed countries.

Giving and it’s alms and they haven’t complied since the COP in Paris, because they’re not interested in decarbonization and the excessive figure on the meager loans from multilateral banks is between zeros, which are just that, pure innocuous alms, pure ideology thinking that the profitability of capital cleans the atmosphere and saves lives, lies, ideological, phantasmagorical, fetishes so that we don’t look up and don’t act as humanity.

The climate crisis requires prioritizing investment in decarbonization and adaptation in all public budgets. It requires a completely different global financial policy and the abolition of the debt risk premium.

Whoever said that countries that emit the most greenhouse gases, like this one, the second or first on Earth, are risky rather than not risky, and that countries that absorb CO2 and have jungles and lots of water and absorb CO2 from the north in the south are risky, because the market says otherwise, if not, it is because it is wrong and is heading towards the abyss of life.

We need to forgive debt in the poorest countries and exchange foreign debt payments for investment in climate crisis adaptation and mitigation. Gentlemen of China, Germany, the United States, Wall Street, Paris, and the London Stock Exchange, if you want to collect the interest on our countries’ foreign debt, you will find cemeteries and dead bodies, and when you go to collect it, you too will find cemeteries and dead bodies. That money is of no use amidst corpses.

Here is another subversive word: plan, global plan. The word was forgotten by the market. Planning was not necessary, they said. When planning is for human beings, it is anathema. So much religious and false belief was unleashed on the market, a fundamentalist belief that the market led to happiness, said Walras, the Swiss economist, and the abyss.

But what the market leads to is not happiness, but death and the abyss, as we see it today. Walras was wrong, neoliberalism was wrong from the start, and we’ve been guiding our countries for 50 years under completely erratic and unscientific formulas, and we haven’t changed them.

The plan must be binding on nation states, carried out in a global democracy, supervised in its compliance by the Security Council, without veto, because let us know that the market does not solve the climate crisis, let us know it once and for all, because it was capital itself that produced it – which is an unequal human relationship between those who are the owners of the coal and oil-hungry machine and the salaried worker, man or woman, who has to produce more and more things for the boss to sell – those things made with the boss’s machine that needs more and more oil, which produced the climate crisis.

Make more, sell more, earn more, more and more, and use more and more, then, coal and oil until today, but not until eternity, because oil and coal have reached their end, which, perhaps, is the end of capital. If not of capital, then of humanity and life.

So, the owner of capital is a powerful human being, and he’s not a thing, he’s not a fetish. That human being, with his greed, with his total enslavement to greed, is the one who will seek approval here, the search for ever more oil, the search for ever more oil in every country, regardless of the poisoning of the atmosphere with CO2, which is the poisoning of all life on the planet.

Drill, drill, and drill, they say, without mercy. So, capital or life, my friends, or greed or life, or barbarism or local and global democracy, or freedom or death, as Bolívar said, and raised this red, black, and also white flag: freedom, red, death, black, white, peace.

World Revolution

A global revolution of the people is possible. What is needed to positively overcome the climate crisis and prevent it from spiraling from crisis to global collapse is a revolution of united peoples, of civilizations, who must engage in dialogue more than the states themselves. It is a revolution of humanity to remain alive on the planet and free, perhaps, allied with some governments that want to defend life today.

The United Nations sees its crisis and the need for its transformation. Here, nation-states that no longer have power gather, and no matter how much they vote, they are ignored, because the nation-state has also reached its decline, perhaps its final one.

It was invented some centuries ago and it no longer works, and it no longer works because capital itself became global, not state-based. The socialism of (Joseph) Stalin (Soviet politician, military man, revolutionary, and dictator) should have become global and not state-based, but Stalin did not have the understanding for it and believed more in the tribe and condemned in Yalta a world revolution in Spain, in Italy, in Greece, and perhaps it would have been Latin America and others.

Humanity is the new political subject that appears, not the nation-state, and therefore, the United Nations must return and transform into a united, although diverse, humanity. A new political subject is appearing in human history, and it is important, and it seems spectacular to me, and it is that we are overcoming the idea of ​​the nation-state to become humanity.

But for humanity to be united and united in action, it must have democracy throughout the world; it must have permanent dialogue amidst diversity. It is the difference that drives us to the possibility of effective coordination of action on a global scale—humanity in dialogue.

Yes, civil humanity, yes, profoundly democratic humanity, yes, hopefully, a humanity of free people, which is its definition, its synonym, because there can be no such thing as enslaved humanity. Enslaved humanity is not humanity; it is beastly. Beastly is the one who enslaves, chains migrants, launches missiles at young people, and riddles children with missiles in a town very close to where Jesus was born.

This can no longer be resolved by states that talk but don’t act; it can’t be resolved by rulers bribed by oil and ready to launch missiles at the peoples of the South. A new political entity then emerges: humanity united and diverse in its cultures. While collapse approaches, and while the old, white societies of Europe and the United States continue to applaud their new, fashionable Hitlers, they listen neither to their youth, nor to their children, nor to humanity, nor to the stars, nor to their grandparents who died as heroes in the fields of Europe, truly fighting against Hitler and his criminal idea of ​​a superior race.

Today, they do the same thing Hitler did: they build concentration camps for migrants and applaud electoral majorities, saying migrants are an inferior race, collectivizing blame on them, as they did with the Jews, calling them terrorists, inferior, and thieves—all drug traffickers, they say. When most drug traffickers are blond and blue-eyed, and keep their enormous fortunes in the world’s largest banks, they don’t live in Bogotá, Caracas, the Caribbean, or Gaza, but in Miami, they are neighbors of the President of the United States, and they live in New York, Paris, Madrid, and Dubai. They live where there is luxury, not poverty, yet they fire missiles where there is poverty, not where there is luxury. It’s a lie that the Aragua train is a terrorist organization; they’re just common criminals in the form of a gang, swelled by the stupid idea of ​​blockading Venezuela and seizing its heavy, already poisonous oil.

Migrants are not criminals; they don’t need to be taken to concentration camps and expelled in chains. Migration is merely a product of the blockade against poorer countries like Iraq, Iran, Cuba, or Venezuela. The economic blockade is nothing less than genocide.

Migration is nothing more than the product of the impoverishment of the poorest countries due to unpayable and greedy debt. Migration is nothing more than the consequence of the wars and oil-fueled invasions unleashed by the United States and the European continent. Migration is nothing more than the consequence of the climate crisis, which is heading toward collapse and leaving tropical lands without water because the vital liquid evaporates as the heat increases.

The migration solution is nothing other than, or very different from, chains, prisons, or missiles. There is no superior race, gentlemen. There is no God’s chosen people.

Neither the United States nor Israel. Ignorant far-right fundamentalists think this way. God’s chosen people are all of humanity.

They use migration as an excuse to do nothing about the climate crisis that wipes out life every day. They leverage migration to win votes from whites and older men and women, but they hide the need to end coal and oil consumption from power, and they incentivize drilling and drilling and drilling. The UN needs to change now.

A different, humane UN must first and foremost stop the genocide in Gaza. Humanity cannot allow another day of genocide, nor can it allow Netanyahu’s genocidaires and his allies in the United States and Europe to go free. The United Nations must uphold international courts of justice, international law, which is the foundation of civilization and the wisdom of humanity encapsulated in history, and must enforce the judgment of its justice.

Diplomacy has already played its part, gentlemen, in the case of Gaza. It couldn’t solve it. It’s not true, and I apologize, Macron, that we can insist and insist on talking and talking when every second a missile falls and destroys the bodies of innocent babies, baby boys and baby girls, in the Arab country of Palestine.

Every day, emotions are vetoed in the UN Security Council; every day that passes, more children are bombed, every time you take bombs, every time you take dead people. The one who vetoes what he thinks is not a mother, is not a father, is not alive, perhaps comes from dark forces, is a robot because he has no heart to veto. The genocide must stop with what follows diplomacy.

It’s like a vote of the United Nations Assembly, not a vote of the Security Council, which vetoes. It’s like a United for Peace for Palestine, forming an armed force to defend the lives of the Palestinian people. It’s about words and weapons today.

They are not blue helmets, untrained and sometimes unwilling to do what they need. They are a powerful army of countries that do not accept genocide. Therefore, I invite the nations of the world and their peoples above all, as part of humanity, to unite their armies and weapons.

Palestine must be liberated. I invite the armies of Asia, of the Slavic peoples who so heroically defeated Hitler, the Latin American armies of Bolívar, of Garibaldi, who also had one in Italy, of Martí, of Artigas, of Santa Cruz. Words are no longer necessary in Bolívar’s hour of the sword of freedom or death, because they will not only bomb Gaza, not only the Caribbean, as they already do, but also humanity that cries out for freedom, because from Washington and NATO, they are killing democracy and reviving tyranny and totalitarianism on a global level.

We must raise the red and black flag of freedom or death that Bolívar raised, without forgetting the white color he raised alongside the red and black, the color of peace as hope for life on earth and in the heart of humanity. The United States no longer teaches democracy; instead, it kills it with its migrants and its greed. The United States teaches tyranny.

The UN must begin its change by stopping the genocide in Gaza with the effectiveness of a world-saving army, voted on by the United Nations General Assembly without veto. After saving Gaza, we will move on to the plan to decarbonize the planet’s economy, so that it becomes a democratically constructed global project and establishes global democracy. The body overseeing its rapid implementation will be the Security Council, but without vetoes. It will be binding on the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF, and the private financial system, given the enormous capacity of the national and global financial system to centralize capital. It is from there that humanity can regulate capital to subordinate it to life and humanity—a capital regulated and subordinated to life and people.

Along this path, the United Nations will transition from an alliance of states to an alliance of diverse peoples and cultures that make up humanity. If we overcome the climate crisis, and we will only do so united as humanity, we will also achieve the United Nations’ transition toward an assembly of peoples, seeking to ensure that every person on the planet is free, seeking to ensure that the minds of every person reach their full potential and interconnect on the planet, because that great mind of humanity, as a powerful intelligence, illuminated by ever-deepening science, will be able not only to save life on the planet but also to fulfill humanity’s mission, expanding life to the stars. A united and free humanity can look to the stars and reach them, just as the Roman legionaries once thought, back when they invented the Latin words ad astra, ad astra to the stars, always in the hour of freedom or death. And death in missiles is real, but so is freedom in the human heart and its capacity for unity, rebellion, and existence.

Thank you very much.

New York (United States), September 24, 2025

Let’s say that, listening to (US President Donald) Trump’s speech yesterday, I remembered an old writer, from the 20th century, who died in 1971, his name was Gyorgy Lukács. Gyorgy was Hungarian and had been involved in the Hungarian revolution back in the 1920s. And he went through, like all intellectuals of that time, Nazi persecution.

And in 1954, he wrote a book called ‘The Assault on Reason.’ I was just talking about it with economist Jeffrey Sachs, who’s here too. Greetings to Joseph Stiglitz.

‘The assault on reason’ is the intellectual idea of ​​writing about how a social thought evolves in society and in these Nazi configurations that existed before 1933, which gives way to the emergence of (Adolf) Hitler in 1933, how some liberals of the Weimar Republic (a German city) decide to hand over power to him, because Hitler was never a majority or was not an electoral majority at that time, the electoral majority was social democrat and communist, divided and killing each other.

The Social Democrats of that time also shot Rosa Luxemburg in the 1920s; later, that division led to the rise of Hitler, but in addition to the political circumstances, there was also a mental circumstance in society, a kind of impotence in allowing irrationalism to take over the intellectual space in a country like Germany, which boasted of having the best philosophers in the world.

Last night, well yesterday, what I saw was that very thing.

In Trump’s speech, and I’ve asked many American citizens I’ve met here, what is the state of American society? Well, we know ours, but here, in a relatively libertarian city like New York, the center of enormous struggles in the past and still today, or California, etc., because if American society moves toward irrationalism, which is what Trump called for, not science, not reason, the assault on reason, then we are in circumstances predating widespread barbarism.

And in light of that, let’s say, if one goes back and looks at these totalitarian proposals throughout history, they have almost always been based on two axes: people’s fear and lies.

(Joseph) Goebbels is a lie. Today, the media is in the hands of big capital, a lie about the possibility of a much more brutal, much more brutal Artificial Intelligence, in terms of information manipulation. If knowledge, which they call the cloud, which is the general intellect of humanity throughout history accumulated here in the present, is privatized—and there’s a reason Trump was on his inauguration day alongside Mr. Elon Musk and the owner of Facebook (Mark Zuckerberg), Microsoft (Bill Gates), etc.—then there’s a pending discussion here, which is global: Will there be private owners of the cloud, that is, of humanity’s accumulated intellect, digitized? Or will it be a global public domain? And that’s a first point of discussion that, I think, Europe can help us a lot with, more than we ourselves, who haven’t developed this topic much.

But this issue of lies and truth is a battlefield today, and we must give truth its weapons, and this means putting science on the side, reason on the side of unreason, and the battle has concrete instruments, debates, concrete spaces, and concrete forces.

The other part is fear.

The fears of humanity

What are you afraid of today? I’m going to finish, I’m already here finishing. Chileans are more disciplined than Colombians, aren’t they? We dance better, so we’re wasting time. We’re going to invite (former Chilean President Michelle) Bachelet to dance here at the United Nations, hopefully at the General Secretariat, wherever they invite us.

We have to go in strong, or else… That’s why I proposed an army to save the world, but so far, Indonesia has responded with a significant yes. We also need to talk about that. Because I learned in my youth that human beings aren’t understood through words alone, and especially now.

So, what fears?

I summarize the fears in three major fears, and they are not the only ones: fear of the climate crisis, it is evident, it is seen every day, even if you deny it, it appears.

There’s no need to explain it much, and it’s only going to get worse. From what we know from science, we’re approaching collapse, and that’s scary, scary to die, scary that your children will die.

Any woman in New York with children will be afraid. Overcoming the crisis allows us to avoid generating fear, and then we would have an alliance within humanity, but if humanity allows itself to be overcome by fear of the climate crisis and, above all, by what we propose to solve it. I’ll conclude.

We propose, in a way, as it’s read or as it can be manipulated, to put an end to comfort, and these are comfort societies. Europe, the Latin American middle classes, and the United States, comfort.

We’re going to get rid of the car, we’re going to get rid of the sooty house, we’re going to get rid of gasoline-powered transportation, etc. We’re going to get rid of everything made with oil, and almost everything is made with oil.

So, the world of wellness is carbonized. When we talk about decarbonization, it’s equivalent to taking away the world of wellness, and obviously, this implies a different discourse, because how comfort can be created with decarbonization, how art can be comfort, and so on—well, I won’t go into that further due to time.

The other fear is the fear of women. And the third fear is the fear of migrants. Fear of free women.

Oh, yes! The men I’ve seen around Colombia are, many of them, terrified of seeing a woman, per se, beautiful and intelligent; they’re overwhelmed. They like to see her beautiful, but not intelligent enough to dominate her.

But when beauty—and I’m not referring to the beauty imposed on us, but to the beauty that each human being has in their own spirit when they express it—combines intelligence, then the loss of power, which they have had for millennia, frightens man.

And that loss of power drives man to the extreme right. And that’s another of humanity’s fears.

And the third is the migrant.

A major current debate. The discussion about migrants has overshadowed the discussion of the climate crisis and has been premeditated, because the discussion about migrants brings in votes in racist societies, and many and majorities. And so, the left, progressivism, has clung to the need to win a majority.

It makes sense, but in racist societies, it sometimes involves bending the principles that say we are equal, free, and united.

So, a progressive discourse in Europe, especially—Pedro (Sánchez, President of the Spanish Government)—has to be very careful, right? It has to confront racism, not coexist with it, that is, an anti-immigrant policy, the same in the United States, the same in Colombia, because we have strong migrations, the same as (Chilean President Gabriel) Boric in Chile, excuse the discussion, and everywhere that grants rights to migrants.

He’s a human being, and every human being is subject to rights everywhere in the world, regardless of their skin color, and regardless of the racist reaction, even the majority of a society, progressivism must be there. Boric, excuse me.

Perhaps power is discussed in Europe not only with the ballot boxes, where only whites, Aryans, go, because the others don’t have the right to go to the polls, but also on the street.

That’s why we see massive European mobilizations and progressive defeats at the ballot box. If we combine the two: the streets and the ballot boxes in a political strategy, we unite the majority of the diverse European people, or the diverse people here in New York, or people everywhere in the world, and progressivism once again becomes the majority and, therefore, powerful.

I’ll leave these thoughts here. I went a little too far, Boric, but excuse me.

Video of the Colombian President’s speech. Video credit Colombian Presidency.

Eyewitnesses and published videos show Hernandez displaying erratic behavior. A Daily Mail report states operators of the terminal suspected the individual may have been under the influence of hallucinogenic substances—a claim consistent with the disoriented and unpredictable conduct observed during the altercation. Initial reports stated that Hernandez is a New Yorker, but he claims to hail from the tampa area. Hernandez says the episode started when he removed his shirt because it was hot. Finance Colombia has verified that immigration intake at the Rafael Nuñez International Airport in Cartagena is airconditioned, and no other passengers felt the need to remove their shirts.

Intoxicated American Tourist Disrupts Cartagena Airport, Damages Immigration Booths An intoxicated American, Enmanuel Andrés Hernández, 42, from New York, sparked chaos at Rafael Núñez International Airport in Cartagena, Bolívar, on Colombia’s northern Caribbean coast. On… pic.twitter.com/lnzzhwf6aP

— Cartel Watch (@CartelWatchNet) July 18, 2025

Emmanuel Andrés Hernandez passport. Photo credit: Cartagena Secretary of the Interior.

Airport security and law enforcement personnel intervened, physically restraining Hernández to regain control of the situation. Migración Colombia officials then detained him, conducting standard procedures to determine the extent of the breach regarding public order and safety.

Migración Colombia invoked Article 105 of Decree 1067 of 2015, which permits the forcible removal of non-citizens who pose a threat to public order or institutional security. Under this decree, Hernández was served an expulsion order, placed on a flight back to the United States, and issued a ten-year ban on re-entry to Colombia.
Further, the Mayor’s Office of Cartagena officially condemned the incident, reaffirming the city’s commitment to protecting civil order and institutional respect at all border entry points.

The incident reportedly caused temporary disruptions in immigration processing and alarm among airport personnel and travelers; however, operations returned to normal shortly after security regained control. Authorities have reported no serious damage to structural infrastructure. As can be seen in the video below, Hernandez complains about disrespect from officials and bystanders who started recording him, that they were “violating his privacy,” as though taking off one’s shirt in an airport line is not behavior worth noting.

“What hurts me the most about everything that happened? Being expelled from the country where you spent many years of childhood. Not being able to return to Colombia to hug your parents or perhaps receive forgiveness for your aggressive behavior. What hurts me the most is not seeing my parents in Colombia for 10 years. That really hurts me.”

Hernandez Speaks

Colombian news outlet Impacto News was able to speak with Hernandez, where the traveler laments that after the episode, no airline is willing to transport him back to the US. In the interview, which can be seen below, Hernandez explains that he is from a Colombian family, and was visiting his elderly father. The video shows photos of Hernandez’s family, who had to cut his father’s birthday cake with Hernandez in custody and waiting for expulsion.

” I think it’s that when I took off my shirt, there was an immigration officer or people who were at the airport who started recording me and I told them to please stop, that this was part of my privacy, that they shouldn’t record me, Please don’t record me. And everyone started taking out their cell phones and recording me. And it wasn’t the people who were in the line, it was the people who work for immigration. Who work for the government. Instead of helping me and asking me how I was, they started recording me and that was my reaction because it’s my privacy and it broke my heart that no. If I’m feeling bad, if you’re feeling bad, seriously, Sir, I see you on the street. I try to help you. I don’t try to bring you down or humiliate you or make you feel less. That’s logical. That’s what one expects from a person, especially an official, a person who works for the Colombian government, any government in the world, you know what I mean? And that’s why, and if you watch the sequence of videos, there’s a part where I’m laughing that there hadn’t been any commotion yet and nothing had happened. I was laughing because he was recording me and I told him please don’t record me anymore. I was saying please don’t record me anymore, please don’t record me. Very disrespectful. It’s disrespectful that you record me. And he understood me and I asked him several times. And I think it’s something that, uh, everyone takes out their cell phone to record, but no one reaches out to help right now.”

While violent episodes involving foreign visitors at airports are rare in Colombia, and no charges related to illegal drug use have been leveled against Mr. Hernandez, the government cautions against the potential legal and safety risks linked to visitors consuming psychoactive substances—often without understanding their effects or legal status. In response, Migración Colombia emphasizes that it continues to reinforce protocols to manage disruptive travelers and safeguard public safety.

Emmanuel Andrés Hernandez. Photo credit: Cartagena Secretary of the Interior.

✈️ Expulsan a turista que protagonizó acto violento en aeropuerto de Cartagena.

🇺🇸 El ciudadano estadounidense agredió a funcionarios y causó destrozos. Migración Colombia ordenó su salida.

🗣️ “Cartagena se respeta”, dijo el secretario del Interior, Bruno Hernández. pic.twitter.com/I8xfExYoei

— Red+ Noticias (@RedMasNoticias) July 19, 2025

Click on the image above to view the video. 

Finance Colombia: But here, of course, in Medellín… Medellín is, as you know, kind of like a combination of the Silicon Valley of Colombia, and now with the biotech that you’re doing, it’s almost like Boston as well. It’s amazing to see something like this, not just Colombian operated, but Colombian owned, as part of SURA.

Jorge Osorio: We are very proud of it, you know, we’re very proud, and it’s kind of my dream come true. I left Colombia when I was very young, 22 years old. I didn’t know a word of English. I grew up in a very humble family, you know, a low-income family. But through education, I was able to make it through, and I ended up in Wisconsin, without even knowing where Wisconsin was. I went with short sleeves, you know? But I went in the summer, so it was great, because the summer is so nice, you know. As the weather gets colder and colder, I was like, “Oh my god, what am I doing here?”

Finance Colombia: By September, it’s all changing.

Jorge Osorio: I know, I know. The first November I was there, we had three feet of snow. It was up to here, so it was crazy. It was crazy. So then, little by little, you know, I learned English, and loved school, did my master’s, my PhD in Wisconsin, and I worked in the industry in the US. I started my own company in the US. My mom, all these things are inspired by mothers, you know, mothers play a major role in us. My mother told me one day, “Son, you haven’t done anything with your life.” After having my master’s, my PhD, and being a professor in one of the top universities in the US, my mom said, “You haven’t done anything with your life. People in Colombia are dying of dengue, and you haven’t done anything. Do something, do something for dengue, try to figure that out.” So what a challenge. So I started studying dengue, and with a friend of mine, created a company to make a vaccine, and I did it. It was successful.

Click on the above image to watch the full video and tour.

So that was like my moment of pride, and that vaccine is now in the hands of the people. Our company, Takeda, bought the vaccine, bought the company, and everything, and now that’s being used to prevent dengue. So at the same time, I said, “I need to do something for my own country, you know, my homeland. I’ve done this company somewhere else, and I need to do something.” So COVID came, you know.

And when COVID came, SURA said, “We need to do something.” Because what has happened is that we’re going to continue having these problems, you know, these outbreaks, these things are going to continue happening in general. But we were like one of the last countries… well, LATAM was one of the last regions to get vaccines.

Finance Colombia: Most people here who could, I mean, even I flew to Miami to get my vaccine, and then people were waiting on different ones, and the country was dependent on the mercy… And every other country is going to take care of their people first, and then send what’s left over down here.

Jorge Osorio: So we got vaccines from Sinovac, we got a few things there, but SURA said, “We need to do something ourselves, we need to do something.” So I came to meet with them, and that was my dream. I said, You know, I want to do something for my homeland.” And this is it.

So I decided, I want this to be inspired, to make people feel good to come to work here, and so the design of the buildings, I took a lot of a role in that as well. The design of the gardens, everything, the facilities inside, everything I did, I did a lot myself.

Finance Colombia: It’s amazing. So from Wisconsin, back home. And so you already sort of answered a couple of the questions that I have, which was why, not just why Colombia, not that there’s any bad reasons, but it’s interesting because there has not been, not just in Colombia, but in Latin America generally, not a large industry in producing high-level biologics.

I mean, some companies do things like produce vitamins, and some contract manufacturing, but not like the vaccines, which is a much higher tech than just saying, “I’m going to produce a generic, I’m going to produce a vitamin supplement,” or something like that.

Jorge Osorio: So yeah, because look, the whole region is 650 million. LATAM. That’s pretty large, isn’t it? And there are only four countries that make vaccines: Mexico, Cuba, Brazil, and Argentina, and they don’t make enough for everyone. So there’s a need to do this. There’s a need to produce something that will provide more vaccines for the region. At the same time, my dream is that… Tropical diseases affect people around the planet. It’s not just Colombia, or Venezuela, or the region, but mosquito-borne diseases, dengue, for example, affects people in Africa, in Europe, Spain, and Italy are having cases of that as well, and Asia as well.

Primary filling facility (photos © Loren Moss)

So I think what I would like to see happening is that we export science and technology from Colombia. We put our brains to work, and we export science and technology to help folks in other parts of the world, and we can control diseases in that way. We can export our knowledge and our scientists. I’m very proud of the scientists that we have, you know, people that we have.

Finance Colombia: The talent, and not just Colombian talent, but global talent. You have a quality control guy coming from India… And so that makes Colombia, and specifically Antioquia, kind of like a global hub.

Jorge Osorio: So what I want to see here, and we can even walk, and you can see. Because I’d like you to see what my dream is. You know, if you come to this area, it’s mostly.. You find these parking areas for cars that are near the airport, right? We can change the whole concept here by creating what you just said, a biotech hub.

That this whole area here, I dream that there’s going to be more buildings coming, hospitals, because we need some other supplies to make the vaccines. We need someone to make the caps, the glasses, and the enzymes. So I think we could have some other players that will come here and say, “Hey, you know, I want to be part of this.” And this could be a new hub for biotech. That’s how it started, actually in India.

If you go to a place like Hyderabad, if you’ve been there, but the hub for biotechnology there it’s called the Genome Valley. And that Genome Valley started about 30 years ago with one single company. Today, it’s amazing. And that’s what I want to see happening here: that we build more and more industry, and we invite more people to come to join this effort.

Finance Colombia: And people don’t realize that that brings not just the jobs, but the talent and the know-how that establishes you as the center for this.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. And, you know, I think I’ve been seeing the Colombian folks that have come back, they wanted something like this to happen. They have said, you know, like you just met the plant director, Juan Fernando. He’s like, “Oh, you know, this was a dream of my life to be able to come back, but the opportunity was never there.” So I think we want to provide that, but also for the young people who are here in Colombia to feel that there’s an opportunity.

Finance Colombia: You don’t have to leave. There’s an opportunity here. A lot of times, there’s a brain drain.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. Right. So we want to create the talent that we have. We want to stimulate the young people to say, “Hey, you know, I can do something as well for my country. I can come here, learn about technology, and new things to produce vaccines.” What I also like to have is innovation, okay? And what I have done is bring technology that has been used, for example, in mRNA vaccines. We can now make mRNA vaccines here.

Finance Colombia: Messenger RNA. 

Jorge Osorio: Like the vaccine that COVID, that Pfizer made, that was, you know, like saved the world, basically, the vaccine that was made in 11 months. We can make that here. And we can do that. So I think I’d like to have the concept of health independence, you know, that we can do health sovereignty for the region. And that our country can also… and our region, because I think more about LATAM. I’m very proud of being a Latino.

You know, we can say, you know, here we are. We can take care of things. We can do it ourselves. We can drive the economy. Change the economy of the region. You know, I think we can do that because when we export science and technology, we can change that.

Finance Colombia: A knowledge economy. It’s not good when all the laborers are local and all of the managers are from somewhere else.

Jorge Osorio: Yeah. That happens in some places. Some companies do that. You know, and I’m very proud also of the training. What we want to do is that the opportunity that I have, which someone gave me a scholarship in Wisconsin, and I can do it for a hundred people. I can do it for more people. So we are sending people to Wisconsin. It’s a good education, you know, and I want them to have that opportunity to educate themselves, to experience what it’s like to be out of their comfort zone, and to understand that they can do good things. They can do even better things than I have done. So I’m proud. We are training people now. And not just science, you know. They are getting into business development, education, accounting, all that.

Finance Colombia: Accounting, engineering, management, right.

Jorge Osorio: All that. Right. So I think that’s what we love to see happening. To change this area.

Laboratory building (photos © Loren Moss)

Finance Colombia: This is such a modern plant. It’s brand new. I remember when they announced it, we did an article about four years ago, I believe it was, you know, covering it. And I remember thinking, “Okay, well, you know, it’s a concept. Let’s see.”

Jorge Osorio: “Let’s see what happens.”

Finance Colombia: And it wasn’t that I didn’t believe it, but, you know, I live very close to here. And when I saw the construction begin on the site, I was like, “Oh, this is real. This is coming.”

Jorge Osorio: This is real.

Finance Colombia: You know, and here it is.

Jorge Osorio: And also, one very important thing is the Colombian talent: the engineers, the architects, who took the concept, we had the best advisors from India and other places that have built manufacturing facilities all over the world. We took that concept and we have to translate that to the local language here because nobody here has made a facility like this before. And it’s not so simple.

If I walk you through this building and you will see the level of complexity that is on every level there. It’s amazing to be able to connect the air, the energy, and all the water supplies. It’s amazing. So, to me, I’m also proud to say this was built by local companies, you know, that did that work. But we brought the best technology and equipment from around the world. This is what makes me very proud of it, that we have done that.

So, you can see that in three and a half years, this is what we have, you know, and I think it’s really…We have had visitors from all over the world now, different companies that have said, you know, like you said, “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know if those guys are going to come up with anything.” But look at it now.

Finance Colombia: When you saw SURA behind it, you know, SURA is a multinational. It’s Colombian, based in Medellín. It’s a company that already has assets and operations, and they, you know, they go far beyond everything from health insurance to car insurance to all different types of asset management and things like that. So, certainly that backing, I would imagine, gives you the financial stability.

Jorge Osorio: It does. That’s why I made that major commitment, because for a long time I wanted to do this, but people will say: “you know, I’ll give you $500,000.” This takes more than that, you know. So, when I first started this project, I told SURA, well, this is going to cost probably $100 million. In the first year, you’re going to cost maybe about $15 million. Say, okay, what are you waiting for to get started?

So, you need to have that muscle behind, that group that tells you, you’re not going to run short of this. And that’s where I think the private sector in our economy plays a major role. This would have never happened with government funds. I’ll be honest with you. I wish I were wrong there, but you need that private muscle, insurance that says, “Hey, you know, here I’m supporting you and, you know, just keep going, keep going.”

Finance Colombia: The patience, not just the capital, but I mean, it’s kind of sad when we look at it. There are cases. I was in Cartagena, and I was in La Guajira recently, and I saw unfinished hospitals. And there’s a case right now up on the Atlantic coast, and they gave the guy the deposit to start building the hospital, and he ran off, and he’s in Miami somewhere or something like that.

Jorge Osorio: That’s crazy. That’s crazy. So, you know, I think what we have here is also my name, my credibility. I put my name on this, and I want to deliver. I want to deliver to SURA but also to my people, to my commitment that I have.

Finance Colombia: Oh, it’s helping untold millions. Something you talked about earlier that I’m also curious about, you mentioned the work that you’ve done with dengue. And dengue, I remember my first time in Nicaragua, which was before, it was back in the 90s, and there was a dengue outbreak, and I remember being in a restaurant and looking over and people like falling out, you know, and I’m sitting there, but dengue is a very technically difficult disease to create a vaccine for because the vaccine is very, very harsh, and they won’t just give it, that’s why prevention is such a cure. It’s like, look, better not to get bitten by the mosquito.

And so, that’s challenging. And so, I wonder, you know, we’re up here kind of in the mountains at 7,000 feet, but we have things like dengue and yellow fever. In tropical… I’m sure that there are some, you know, I’m not a medical person. If we go down to the Amazon, there are some things that we have parasites and things.

Jorge Osorio: We have oropouche, we have malaria, we have chikungunya, we have many, many things that are tropical diseases. But also, some of those problems, big companies don’t want to put the resources into because they are so local.

Finance Colombia: Orphan diseases. Exactly.

Jorge Osorio: We call them orphan diseases, tropical diseases. So, my goal is also to create vaccines for these types of diseases that affect our population. And now that we see climate change and we see all these issues, we see that the mosquitoes are in Florida and Texas, and all these areas there. So, it won’t be a surprise in the future if we have a major outbreak in the US or something.

Finance Colombia: Then they start paying attention.

Jorge Osorio: Then they will.

Finance Colombia: But it’s important to be able to have the capacity here so that, you know, aside from the research and things like that, if you said we need to produce something, that’s not necessarily getting enough attention, you’re not beholden to some laboratory or some charity somewhere to do it.

Jorge Osorio: That we can make the decisions ourselves. That we can have that independence to say, yes, we want to do this, or we can do this. So, I feel that is also what makes us feel proud of it. You know, we can focus on our diseases, our tropical diseases, but they can also have an impact. I was asked recently, for example, one of the vaccines that I’m working on could have a significant impact in Africa. And we could do… It’s hard to believe that, but it’s going to be true. We will do a technology transfer from here, from Colombia to Africa.

Finance Colombia: Oh, yeah?

Jorge Osorio: That makes me very proud, too.

Finance Colombia: Exactly. Because Colombia is now a donor country, whereas 50 years ago, it was a recipient country.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. So, we can change a few things, but we can also be more involved in this global partnership that we can be part of this network. And we are now part of this network that is also making vaccines and biologicals for all over the world. I think that’s what we wanted to do.

Finance Colombia: That’s great. It’s got to be a, I know it’s a source of pride for you, but also for Paisas, for Antioquia, for Medellín, Rionegro, of course, and then for all of Colombia. And like you mentioned, for Latin America, it’s great to see Colombia taking a leadership role. We hear about Brazil doing things and Mexico doing things, but now Colombia is part of that top tier.

Jorge Osorio: Totally. I feel that that’s what makes us proud. And this is not just an Antioquia or Rionegro project, it’s a nationwide project. And I see more of a regional project, of the entire region. I was in Rio last week as part of this global vaccine research network, and it’s the partnerships that we are doing with people from companies in Brazil, companies in Argentina. You mentioned Mexico, Nicaragua, all those countries, and Cuba as well. And we partner with them. We want to work together with them. So, I think I see this is how we can work together and show that Colombia is going to be on the map. It’s going to be on the map of biotechnology, which I’d like to see happening.

Finance Colombia: Absolutely. It’s so amazing what you’re doing here. I’d love to see if you could kind of give us a tour and show us the cool stuff.

Jorge Osorio: So, let’s, I want to show you what my dream is. Ok?

We’re gonna go there but I want you to see this area here. Because we just walked by, you know, without appreciating this. Look at this. This spiral.

Finance Colombia: It’s almost like…It reminds me of the helix of DNA.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. That’s what it is. It was made for that purpose. To have that there. We brought that in. The colors are the colors of the company. The Vaxthera colors. Which is…we’re very proud of that, you know. And here is the result. So this here is the filling facility, we are going to go into. I want to walk you through some of the areas where people work here at the facilities.

Finance Colombia: Okay. So is this like the laboratory part? Or the production part?

Jorge Osorio: So here is where we bring…You’re gonna see the Rolls-Royce of equipment. Which is very exciting. This equipment took about three years to build. Two and a half years. It was built in Germany. Bausch. Custom-made for us. With a lot of sacrifice and pain from us. Because we have to deal with them here and there. Bring the equipment here. And make it work here. So it takes a while.

Paul: So since we are at the final stage of the construction of the facility. We still have some activities going on inside. But we implemented some measures to minimize the contamination.

Finance Colombia: Right. And the idea is to begin production in April?

Jorge Osorio: So we are going through the process of certification. What’s called certification. And so the team here is preparing what’s called the dossier for the regulatory packaging for INVIMA to come and inspect us.

Finance Colombia: And INVIMA, it’s like the FDA.

Pressure gauges are part of an integrated building management system to prevent contamination. (photos © Loren Moss)

Jorge Osorio: Exactly. The Colombian FDA. So that’s what’s gonna happen.

Paul: So, over here we have some offices, some storage rooms. The raw materials and the consumables that we’re going to use for the manufacturing process are the access to those materials. So it’s a material airlock. So they come directly from the warehouse, and then from here we’re going to sanitize them, and then we’re going to move them into the manufacturing suite. Let’s talk about these guys, pressure gauges. So our facility works with a cascade effect. So that means that the pressure in the grade A area is higher, the highest.

So when you open a door, basically when we’re transitioning from a dirty room to a clean room, the air from the clean room is coming out into the dirty room and not the opposite. It’s like a balloon when you inflate a balloon. So you are creating pressure inside, and then if you release the air, that air is coming out. That’s the principle of the clean rooms. Right. So that’s why it’s very important to have contingencies for power. So that’s constantly monitored by the building management system. So it’s 24/7 that we monitor temperature, pressure, and humidity. So all these devices are connected to a building management system. And in real time, we can check on the computer all those conditions.

Along the way, you can see some storage rooms, some change rooms. Here in particular, we have what we call a disinfection chamber. A fumigation box. So basically, in here, all those materials that we bring from the warehouse, we are going to disinfect them using hydrogen peroxide. So any material that we want to transfer into the aseptic areas, they must be disinfected with the peroxide.

Finance Colombia: So this is one line of production, and then you’ll have multiple lines of production similar to this?

Jorge Osorio: Eventually. This is for now. We’ll have other ones in the future that will be a different technique that will be like, you know, you have seen those pre-filled syringes, we will have something like that as well.

Finance Colombia: Life-saving. Amazing. Wow.

Jorge Osorio: The water tanks that supply water for the company are based right there, so it’s a very special building, and you can see that from there all the gases and lines are piped to all the different buildings, so that comes here to this, this is the filling facility. Then we have another building, which is like the social building, where people go for lunch, and we go we will go there if you like too. You will see nice areas because I also believe that our workers need to have a nice environment to do well.

Finance Colombia: I mean look at the care that you put into the facilities and making it attractive, and an attractive place to work.

Jorge Osorio: I’ll show you that one, it’s also it’s called the potency lab, so we have about six buildings, so that’s the potency lab that for every vaccine we need to test to make sure the vaccine really meets the standards, the requirements that you need to do, so it’s a nice facility that we have, we can walk through it if you like.

They do a few things here, okay, offices, pharmaceutical chemistry, you know, and then inside there, there is the facilities where they do all the potency testing of the vaccine, of the work, yeah, okay, so that would be inside behind there.

Finance Colombia: Wow, amazing, this is so great to see a modern… not just a facility here, but like I said, it’s just as impressive because it’s domestic. You know, it’s one thing if I don’t know, let’s say Pfizer, yes, puts a  Pfizer says, “we’re going to put a factory in Colombia.” That’s great, but this is Colombian.

Jorge Osorio: It’s all made in Colombia, you know, this is what we’re doing.

Finance Colombia: When it’s fully staffed, how many people will you have?

Jorge Osorio: Likely more than 500. At this point, we have about 150 employees, and this is the plant facility, but we have a research lab in Medellín. We are making a lot of progress in a lot of things, very soon, probably, so number one: we’re moving the facility into the Invima regulatory package, so INVIMA is going to come to visit; we had a major announcement with the government, we announced about a month ago that Vaxthera, the Ministry of Health, and the National Institute of Health, signed an agreement to build capacity locally for the next 10 years. So we’re working together, Vaxthera will help the Institute of National Health to make vaccines as well, okay, because we cannot make all the vaccines ourselves. And it’s good to have partners, and to have them as partners of the government, it would be good for all of us.

One of the vaccine packaging lines deep in the heart of the facility. (photos © Loren Moss)

Finance Colombia: I mean, not just for Colombia, because when you increase capacity, then you’re able to help your neighbors. And not just that, but the whole licensing agreement… because when you guys develop the intellectual property, then you can go and license it, not just to other Colombian organizations, but around the world.

Jorge Osorio: That’s what we’re doing, you got it right. We got, last year, our first patent, for a vaccine that would protect against different variants of COVID, and that vaccine, now, it will also protect against Mpox; Mpox is a virus that is affecting people in Africa. So it’s going to be amazing that we will support some African countries, you know, to develop that vaccine, because we have made it here. We are going to make shingles here, too.

I’m so happy with SURA, because when we had this discussion with SURA, there were some people here in Colombia that were skeptical, saying, “Those guys are not going to do it, you know, they’re never going to be able to do this, or also, where are you going to find the people to do this.”

Finance Colombia: So you’re proving them wrong.

Jorge Osorio: Exactly right, so I’m very happy with that. We have all this space to grow. So take a look, we have all this space, okay? And we have access, we bought the land, this is from our neighbors, we bought them from a family, and that family is very proud of doing this. The owner of the land said, “I want my land to belong to this dream of having the facility here, to do something good.” We have areas here to grow, that we can build, in addition to what we can do here, we have space that we can build more, and there’s even a space behind there.

Finance Colombia: This is only phase one. You have all this space to grow.

Jorge Osorio: It’s going to be nice. And you see, we have the airport right next door, so many vaccines that we can make here.

Finance Colombia: You can ship them instantly anywhere in the world.

Jorge Osorio: Yeah, it’s gonna be nice. And I’m also hosting a scientific event, I’m part of a scientific network, which I want you to know that it’s called PanDengue, from April 21st to the 24th, and there are going to be scientists from all over the Americas coming here.

Finance Colombia: Oh great.

Jorge Osorio: And we’re going to keep hosting events here; there are going to be scientists from Europe, from Africa coming here as well. And I want to make the case, you know, why this could be a good investment, you know, because some people might be afraid of investing in LATAM. We expect next year to have vaccines with the label Vaxthera. Next year, and hopefully, the government will approve them, and we should be in good shape, so this also makes me proud.

Finance Colombia: And like I said, it’s just so impressive to see this happening right here, you know, 15 minutes from where I live, and even more so, it’s not like some big company from Europe or the US, or China, or China said, “We’re going to put a factory in Colombia,” which is good, you know, that’s great, that’s fine, but no, but this is Colombian, and that’s what’s so cool.

As part of a joint security operation with prosecutors and other government officials at the end of February, Colombia’s national police seized 100 weapons, and eight properties, and arrested three legal representatives of several private security companies. A former colonel and captain in the country’s police force were detained. Both now face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering and illegal enrichment.

Authorities targeted three security companies that allegedly facilitated access to weapons and provided bodyguard licenses to members of criminal groups operating across various departments and the cities of Bogotá, Neiva, Ibagué, Puerto Triunfo, and Villavicencio.

SEE ALSO: How Ecuador’s Criminals Are Taking Advantage of Private Security Firms

During a March 10 cabinet meeting, President Gustavo Petro questioned the irregularities within the private security industry that allow these practices to occur.

“Criminals are being given a free pass,” he said during the meeting. “The owners of security companies are paramilitaries and drug traffickers, sometimes ex-military and ex-police officers.”

The Colombian government awarded contracts to some companies recently implicated through the National Protection Unit (Unidad Nacional de Protección – UNP), the state body in charge of managing protection measures provided to individuals and communities living in high-risk environments.

InSight Crime Analysis

The involvement of former members of Colombia’s security forces in using private security companies to provide illegal services to crime groups highlights the continuation of a years-long, mutually beneficial relationship that has bolstered the country’s armed groups.

This is just one consequence of the outsourcing of public security in Colombia, a country that has been deeply affected by a multi-decade armed conflict featuring dozens of criminal actors, according to Luis Fernando Quijano, a security analyst in Medellín and president of the non-profit Corporation for Peace and Social Development (Corporación para la Paz y el Desarrollo Social – Corpades).

“The privatization of public security has turned private security companies into a profitable business,” he told InSight Crime. “The state has facilitated some illegal activity in this country, and the issue of [private] security is a clear example.”

For many years, crime groups from all over Colombia have relied on these companies to source weapons and pass members off as registered bodyguards.

Alexander Ruíz Pulido, for example, the retired colonel who was among those arrested during the February operation, also directed several similar businesses in the cities of Cúcuta, Barranquilla, Medellín, and Pereira, as well as in the United States in Miami, Florida. Some of Ruíz Polido’s companies had links to former paramilitary leaders with the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia – AUC). Among those who reportedly received weapons and official licenses was Oliverio Isaza Ramírez, alias “Terror,” a commander with the Gaitanist Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia – AGC), the main armed group to emerge from the ashes of the AUC. Security forces killed Terror in February.

SEE ALSO: Paramilitary Commander Salvatore Mancuso Reveals AUC’s Connections in Colombia

In another case, a company called SIP Security registered Alejandro Restrepo Marulanda, alias “El Zarco,” and Matías Álvarez Tabares, alias “Keiber” – members of two of Medellín’s most prominent crime groups, Los Tirana and La Terraza – as bodyguards with access to weapons. The chief operating officer of that company is a retired police officer named John Velásquez, according to a November 2024 report from El Tiempo. On one occasion, El Zarco managed to avoid arrest by using documents that showed he was a bodyguard. Velásquez had reportedly obtained police accreditation for those documents.

Beyond providing access to weapons and licenses, private security companies have also helped thwart criminal prosecutions in Colombia. In April 2024, a judge ordered the release of Juan Carlos Castro, alias “Pichi Belén,” a leader of the Oficina de Envigado. Police caught the gang boss openly threatening another person with a weapon in Medellín, but authorities released him because he had a legal permit from a private security company to possess the weapon.

Castro was a client of José Omar Urrego Chitiva, a former police captain and representative of Securbel Ltda. Who was also captured as part of the February operation. Urrego Chitiva used his company to issue a work certificate to Castro that allowed him to later recover the seized weapon, according to a telephone conversation authorities intercepted between Castro and another individual.

Many other major criminal actors in Colombia have used private security companies to give their illicit activities a veneer of legality. The AUC strengthened its military operations through private security and surveillance cooperatives known as the Convivir. These groups served as a point of intersection between the paramilitaries, the military, and business elites, aiding the paramilitary expansion by acting as a conduit to channel weapons, classified information, and other resources into their hands.

The Convivir continues to exist in cities like Medellín. While some maintain their role as local security providers, they have also become involved in illegal activities such as micro trafficking and extortion.

This article, written by Sara Garcia and Juan Camilo Jaramillo, 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. It has been generously shared with Finance Colombia under a Creative Commons license.

Expanded Florida-Latin America Connectivity

Avianca aims to strengthen its presence in Florida by introducing routes linking:

• Fort Lauderdale with Medellín and Managua.
• Miami with San José, Costa Rica, and Guatemala City.
• Tampa with Bogotá, marking Tampa’s first direct connection to Latin America in nearly 50 years.

This brings Avianca to 16 routes between Florida and Latin America

With these additions, Avianca’s total direct routes from Florida to Latin America would increase to 16, reinforcing its position as a major operator in the region.

“Avianca recognizes Florida’s historic importance as a gateway to Latin America,” said Avianca CEO Frederico Pedreira. “We aim to enhance opportunities for family reunification, tourism, and business growth. In 2024 alone, we transported over 4 million passengers on more than 27,000 flights between the U.S. and Latin America. These new routes address our customers’ needs for direct connectivity to key destinations.”

Tampa, one of Florida’s largest metropolitan areas, will connect directly to Bogotá. From there, travelers will have access to over 75 destinations across 25 countries in the Americas and Europe. Additionally, domestic connections in Colombia will link travelers to cities such as Medellín, Cartagena, Cali, Quibdó, and Leticia. Joe Lopano, CEO of Tampa International Airport (TPA), commented, “The Tampa-Bogotá route is significant, offering the first direct connection between TPA and Latin America in decades. This service will benefit business and leisure travelers while providing new opportunities for cultural and commercial exchanges.”

Carmen Caballero, President of ProColombia, highlighted the importance of the Tampa-Bogotá connection. “This route strengthens ties between Colombia and the U.S., our largest tourism market, and expands Colombia’s connectivity in Florida, including Miami, Orlando, and Fort Lauderdale. Together with Avianca, we continue promoting Colombia as a world-class destination for tourism and commerce.” Avianca plans to conclude 2024 with a network of 165 routes across more than 25 countries, including eight new destinations. This expansion underscores its commitment to increasing connectivity and supporting regional development. The new operations are subject to approval by relevant government authorities, including the Fort Lauderdale-Managua route, which requires permissions under Fifth Freedom rights through San Salvador.

Single-family residential revenue showed strong organic growth, reaching a record $95.7 million, a 10.1% increase from the previous year. The company attributed this growth to improving market trends and the expiration of the Florida Impact-Resistant Windows and Doors Sales Tax Exemption.

Net income for the quarter was $35.0 million, or $0.75 per diluted share, compared to $52.6 million, or $1.10 per diluted share, in the previous year. Adjusted net income was $40.5 million, or $0.86 per diluted share, down from $53.5 million, or $1.12 per diluted share, in the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA stood at $64.1 million, representing 29.2% of total revenues, compared to $85.0 million, or 37.7%, in the prior year.

Tecnoglass has reported solid financial performance for the second quarter of 2024, driven by strong single-family residential revenue and a growing backlog.

Cash Flow and Liquidity

The company generated $34.5 million in cash from operations, representing 54% of adjusted EBITDA. Capital expenditures amounted to $20.3 million, including investments in land for potential capacity expansion and a down payment for the Miami headquarters and flagship showroom.

Tecnoglass returned $5.2 million to shareholders in cash dividends and made a $15 million voluntary prepayment to its term loan facility. The company ended the quarter with approximately $300 million in liquidity, including $127 million in cash and cash equivalents and $170 million in available credit. The net leverage ratio was a record low of 0.06x at the quarter’s end.

Backlog and Orders

The company’s backlog grew 29% year-over-year to a record $1.02 billion. Single-family residential orders increased by over 60% compared to the previous year, continuing a record trajectory for the second quarter.

Outlook

Tecnoglass provided an improved full-year 2024 outlook. The company expects full-year revenues to range between $860 million and $910 million, representing approximately 6% growth at the midpoint. Adjusted EBITDA is projected to be between $260 million and $285 million, with an implied adjusted EBITDA margin of approximately 31% at the midpoint.

Tecnoglass COO Christian Daes (l), CEO José Manuel Daes (seated), joined by Ignacio Guatibonza Guerra of BakerTilly (photo Loren Moss)

Sustainability Efforts

Tecnoglass has achieved carbon neutrality for 2022 and 2023, reinforcing its commitment to sustainable practices. The company invested in energy efficiency projects, including upgrading generators and implementing cogeneration systems, resulting in total GHG emissions of 390,411 tCO2eq/year. To offset its carbon footprint, Tecnoglass acquired carbon credits from projects in Colombia certified through the Cercarbono program.

CEO José Manuel Daes stated, “Our commitment to sustainability is a strategic priority. We recognize the importance of taking proactive steps to combat climate change and are proud to be at the forefront of sustainability efforts in our industry.”

Tecnoglass aims to become a net-zero emissions company by 2050, continuing to invest in renewable energy projects, energy efficiency initiatives, and the continuous improvement of its production processes.