Colombia
Colombia registered 343 kidnappings in 2023, the highest number in the last fourteen years, as revealed a report from the Peace and Reconciliation Foundation (Pares).
According to the document, October, with 43 cases, was the month with the highest number of reports, not just from 2023, but from the last five years.
The departments where the most records of this crime were accumulated were Antioquia (northwest) with 54 cases, Norte de Santander (northeast) with 48, Valle del Cauca (west) with 47, Nariño (southwest) with 30 and Cauca (southwest) with 26.
According to the report published by Pares, “this phenomenon accounts for the recurrence of the use of this criminal activity as a financing method by armed groups and organized crime.”
Data collected by the Foundation also indicated that Colombian cities have become “the main scene of daily violence, no longer due to the dynamics of the armed conflict, now, due to the reconfiguration of transnational organized crime.”
Thus, to the high kidnapping figures are added the crimes of extortion, homicides and theft with levels of violence that in the last three years presented the highest figures since 2013.
“The reason for this violence is the emergence and consolidation of organized crime: 197 criminal organizations operate in seven cities,” can be read in the report.
During 2023, eleven organized crime groups and 42 common crime groups were identified, of which some are specialized in thefts and street robberies such as ‘Los Lucky’, ‘Los Maras’ and even ‘Tren de Aragua’ and ‘Satanás’.
#Colombia
