International

Murder rate plummets amid ‘gangster peace’ in Medellin

Photo: Joaquin Sarmiento / AFP

AFP | Hervé Bar

Seven days without a single murder: The month of August marked a security record for Colombia’s second city Medellin, the onetime fiefdom of infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.

“In Medellin, security is measured in lives” saved, said Mayor Daniel Quintero as he welcomed the breakthrough.

Medellin has seen a vertiginous drop in homicides by 97 percent in the 30 years since Escobar’s death, transforming what used to be one of the most violent cities in the world into a popular tourist destination.

The success is attributed in large part to an unofficial but mutually beneficial understanding between narco gangs, paramilitaries and the security services.

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“Peace is good for business,” explained Medellin drug dealer “Joaquin” (not his real name) of the traffickers’ motivation for avoiding violence.

Joaquin is 37 years old — two of those spent behind bars. He wears an oversized baseball cap and sagging jeans.

A Beretta pistol peaks out from under his hoodie.

Joaquin is a “capo,” a junior boss supervising drug trafficking in the streets of “Comuna 6,” a poor neighborhood perched on a mountain slope in Medellin’s northwest.

He belongs to a gang, which he declined to name, that follows the rules imposed by an organized crime “federation” known as the “Oficina de Envigado” or the “Office of Envigado” after the name of a nearby town.

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Joaquin claimed the Oficina and its member gangs acted “in solidarity with the community.”

This included meting out “parallel justice” when the system fails them.

“Escobar? He was much too violent. Too many deaths for nothing,” Joaquin told AFP.

‘The population with us’

“Everyone lives in peace on our territory,” said the capo, keen to portray himself as a good Samaritan.

“We do not want to frighten the traders and the people. We need the population with us.”

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Thirty years after Escobar was shot dead on a Medellin rooftop while trying to evade capture, the drug trade still dominates many poor neighborhoods of the city of nearly three million people.

A stone’s throw from a football pitch where mothers watch their children play, heavy foot traffic at a small, nondescript house indicates the presence of a drug den.

A black garbage bag covers the window where money trades hands. The purchased merchandise drops down from another floor in a tin can on the end of a string.

A variety of product can be found here: marijuana, cocaine and “tucibi” or “basuco” — two cheap and particularly toxic new drugs akin to unrefined “crack.”

“Everything is organized, it’s like a business. There are those who take care of the sale, the logistics, the soldiers. The bosses pay our salaries, we do the job,” said Joaquin.

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He and his colleagues move with incredible ease and assurance through the maze of sloping alleys and small, rickety brick houses. Neighborhood teenagers skulk around, acting as security.

Joaquin and his accomplices pop into one shop after another, shaking hands with acquaintances everywhere while they casually slip a gun into a bag here, deliver a package there.

For the most part, Medellin’s dealers are able to operate in peace due to an understanding among rival gangs as well as with members of the security forces — many of them on the take.

As long as they keep the streets peaceful, the gangs say police turn a blind eye to their lucrative illegal dealings.

Joaquin calls it a “gangster peace.”

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“There is nothing better than peace,” added “Javier,” an associate who met up with Joaquin and another colleague in a squatted house.

They pack out their guns on a table between religious trinkets in a filthy, lightless living room where horse posters vie with a crude rendition of the Last Supper on the wall.

“Every group manages its territory as it wishes… The bosses talk among themselves. Everything is arranged calmly,” said Javier.

‘City of bandits’

After Escobar’s demise, the face of organized crime in Medellin changed. Long controlled by a single cartel, the drug trade is now shared between several gangs under the umbrella of the Office.

The gangs had previously collaborated with paramilitary groups and the security forces to help bring an end to Escobar’s Medellin Cartel and oust leftist guerrilla groups that had tried to fill the power void it left.

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As things settled down and every group found its place in the new reality, Medellin’s homicide rate dropped from 350 per 100,000 inhabitants in 1992 to 10.2 per 100,000 so far this year — nearly half the national average.

“The armed groups set the peace and war agenda in the city,” said Luis Fernando Quijano, director of the Corporation for Peace and Social Development, an NGO.

Colombia’s new leftist president, Gustavo Petro, has vowed to bring “total peace” to conflict- and crime-ridden Colombia, including by offering an amnesty to gangsters willing to give themselves up and abandon the trade.

“We are willing to listen. We will do what the bosses decide,” Pedro said of the plan.

But for Joaquin, “to think that everyone will give themselves up is a dream.”

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“Never forget one thing: Medellin is and will always be the city of bandits,” he insisted.

A local man rests on a balcony at the Comuna 13 neighbourhood in Medellin, Colombia, on September 28, 2022. - One word sums up the history of Medellin over the last twenty years: metamorphosis. After the dark decades of 1970-2000, Colombia's second-largest city is now a transformed, peaceful, dynamic, and attractive city. And one neighborhood, more than any other, symbolizes this renaissance: the famous "Comuna 13". (Photo by JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP)

International

Authorities Say Teotihuacán Gunman Was Obsessed With Mass Shootings and Extremist Symbolism

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According to preliminary findings from the Fiscalía General de Justicia del Estado de México, the 27-year-old suspect, originally from the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, acted alone and appeared to have carefully planned the attack.

Investigators also pointed to signs of a severe psychological or psychiatric disorder. One official involved in the case stated that the suspect seemed to live in “his own reality,” disconnected from the world around him.

“I would not speak of a motive; I would speak of psychopathy, a condition, an illness,” the official said while discussing the ongoing investigation.

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Authorities reported that Jasso Ramírez was allegedly fixated on mass violence incidents that occurred outside Mexico, particularly in the United States.

Among the items found in his possession were writings, images, and materials reportedly linked to the Columbine High School massacre, the school shooting that took place on April 20, 1999.

The investigation remains ongoing as authorities continue analyzing evidence connected to the suspect’s background and mental state.

International

Iran refuses to reopen strait of Hormuz amid ongoing U.S. Naval blockade

Iran reaffirmed on Wednesday that it will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz while the United States maintains its naval blockade against Iranian ports and vessels, amid rising geopolitical tensions in the region.

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohamad Baqer Qalibaf warned that reopening the crucial maritime route depends on Washington honoring the ceasefire agreement. According to Qalibaf, Iran considers the deal to be violated due to ongoing U.S. actions.

The Iranian official accused the United States of carrying out a “naval blockade and the hijacking of the global economy,” while also pointing to Israeli military operations in Lebanon as part of the broader conflict affecting the region.

Qalibaf stated that military and economic pressure would not force Iran to change its position. “The United States and Israel failed to achieve their goals through military aggression, and they will not succeed through intimidation. The only path forward is to recognize the rights of the Iranian nation,” he said.

His remarks come amid stalled negotiations between Iran and the United States following direct talks held on April 11 and 12 in Islamabad.

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The discussions, led by U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian representatives, have shown little progress in recent days, increasing uncertainty over whether dialogue between the two sides will resume.

U.S. President Donald Trump recently announced an extension of the ceasefire but decided to keep the naval blockade in place, a move Tehran considers incompatible with ongoing negotiations.

Meanwhile, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps intensified operations in the area by seizing two vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, accusing them of operating without the required permits and escorting them into Iranian territory.

The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most critical oil trade routes, and any prolonged disruption could have significant consequences for global energy markets.

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International

Maradona’s daughter accuses medical team of “horrible manipulation” in court

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Gianinna Maradona stated that she and her siblings agreed to home hospitalization after doctors presented it as the best option following the neurosurgery Maradona underwent on November 3, 2020.

The football icon died on November 25 of that year, and the ongoing trial seeks to determine whether the conditions of his home care were appropriate.

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“The manipulation was absolute and horrible,” she said during the hearing in San Isidro, near Buenos Aires.

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She accused members of the medical team, including neurosurgeon Leopoldo Luque, psychiatrist Agustina Cosachov, and psychologist Carlos Díaz, of misleading the family.

“I trusted these people, and all they did was manipulate us and leave my son without a grandfather,” she added.

Later in her testimony, recalling that six years have passed since her father’s death, she became emotional and said she struggled deeply with grief in the aftermath.