Santa Marta Armed Strike Cost Colombia’s Tourist City US$30 Million

Colombia · Security

Updated 1 times · Latest: 27 September 2026

A single police operation in the Sierra Nevada put Colombia’s best-known Caribbean tourist corridor under a three-day shutdown by an armed group. The city is now counting the cost.

The Santa Marta armed strike ended on Friday 25 September after three days, and local business leaders put the damage at about COP 99.5 billion (about US$30.5 million). It was declared on Monday 21 September, hours after police killed the second in command of the group that extorts businesses on this coast. It targeted the one road that runs east out of the city toward Tayrona National Park.

What changed on 27 September

The Chamber of Commerce of Santa Marta for Magdalena estimates losses of COP 99.5 billion (about US$30.5 million) over three days. That uses about 3,257 pesos to the US dollar, the rate on 27 September 2026.

The strike began on the night of Monday 21 September and paralysed commerce on the three days that followed. The group lifted it at 7am on Friday 25 September, as its communiqué had announced.

Traffic on the Troncal del Caribe has resumed gradually, with police escorting truck convoys, El País reported on 26 September. Tayrona National Park stayed open, but only visitors with a confirmed booking may enter, and not through the Calabazo sector.

The government has deployed more than 1,000 troops and police, and the president visited the city on 25 September. Some schools stayed shut, and shopkeepers told El País they wonder whether the calm is only a truce.

What the Santa Marta armed strike restricted

An armed strike, or paro armado, is not a government measure. It is an order from an illegal group telling people to stay home and shut their businesses. It is backed by the threat of violence. This one was first declared for 48 hours in a communiqué attributed to the group’s leadership. The group is the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada (ACSN), known locally as Los Pachenca.

The area named is a corridor rather than a list of towns. It covered Santa Marta itself, the Troncal del Caribe coastal highway and the Zona Bananera, a banana-growing area to the south. It ended at 7am on Friday 25 September.

The damage on the first day was narrow but real. Two city buses belonging to Consorcio Ziruma were burned on Monday. It happened on the Troncal del Caribe near the bridge at Barrio 11 de Noviembre.

Armed men ordered the passengers off first, and no injuries were reported. Blockades were reported at 11 de Noviembre, Calabazo and Marquetalia, and residents near Guachaca reported gunfire and military helicopters.

The operation that set it off

The Antinarcotics Directorate of the National Police (DIRAN) ran the operation on Monday afternoon. The Attorney General’s Office and the Colombian Air Force took part. Local media placed the fighting in the Quebrada del Sol area of Guachaca, in the foothills above the city.

Seven people were killed and three captured. Ten rifles were seized, including a Barrett .50 calibre, along with two grenade launchers, two pistols and eight 40mm grenades.

Among the dead was José Luis Pérez Villanueva, alias Cholo. President Abelardo de la Espriella described him as the group’s second leader and the man who ran its finances.

He was reported to have stepped up after police killed another senior commander, alias Bendito Menor, on 4 September. Early reports said a son of the group’s top leader also died. The defence ministry later denied this, the Barranquilla daily El Heraldo reported on 24 September.

De la Espriella spoke at a cabinet meeting in Bogotá on Monday, according to the news agency EFE. “Vamos por todos esos bandidos y el que no se someta va a terminar como el Cholo y los otros seis bandidos dados de baja: en una bolsa y muertos,” he said.

That is: “We are going after all those bandits, and whoever does not submit will end up like Cholo and the other six bandits killed: in a bag and dead.” He flew to Santa Marta that night to chair an extraordinary security council.

By early Tuesday, police and army units were deployed at key points across Magdalena to prevent new blockades, El Heraldo reported.

Why a tourist city is worth fighting over

The ACSN traces back to the paramilitary blocs that demobilised in 2006 and never really went away. The Bogotá newspaper El Espectador puts its strength at more than 700 members in over 14 municipalities across three Caribbean departments.

The Fundación Ideas para la Paz, a Bogotá think tank, counted 594 in a July report. Other security estimates run from 800 to 1,000.

Cocaine moving through Caribbean ports is part of the business. The other part is the city itself.

In March, El Espectador reported that the group controls about 95 percent of the extortion business in Santa Marta. Tourism is hit hardest. The think tank found that about 95 percent of tourism businesses between Santa Marta and Palomino pay.

Businesses were charged registration fees of roughly 300,000 to 1 million Colombian pesos (COP), about US$92 to US$307.

Mototaxi drivers paid COP 100,000 (about US$31) to sign up, then COP 20,000 (about US$6) every week.

That is the reason this fight is being waged on a highway used by backpackers. The Clan del Golfo, Colombia’s largest drug-trafficking group, has been pushing into the same territory. The revenue at stake is generated by visitors.

What it means for travellers and residents

The US Embassy in Bogotá issued a security alert on Monday naming the Troncal del Caribe, Route 90. It covers the stretch from Barrio 11 de Noviembre through Guachaca toward the Magdalena–La Guajira boundary. It notes that this corridor is how people reach Tayrona National Park and the coastal towns east of the city. It advised avoiding the affected stretch.

The road was disrupted rather than formally closed, and traffic has since resumed under police escort. Similar bus burnings followed operations in this area in June. Tayrona also closes on a fixed schedule agreed with the Indigenous peoples of the Sierra Nevada. The next closure runs from 19 October to 2 November.

In the city, Mayor Carlos Alberto Pinedo Cuello signed Decree 431 on Monday. In-person classes were suspended on Tuesday in Guachaca, Calabazo, Bonda, Minca and 11 de Noviembre. Any other school flagged by risk assessment also closed. Minca is a place a lot of visitors stay. Carrying a passenger on a motorcycle was banned across the district for the same 24 hours. No curfew has been imposed.

The practical steps now are simple. Confirm a Tayrona booking before setting out, and check road conditions with local operators before driving east.

The wider bet the government is making

President Abelardo de la Espriella took office on 7 August. He has spent his first weeks dismantling the negotiated approach of his predecessor, Gustavo Petro. Arrest warrants that had been suspended for peace talks are active again. The government has announced a submission law, setting terms for armed groups to surrender. It offers reduced sentences, but no political recognition and no release for those already in prison.

The group’s top leader, Fredy Castillo Carrillo, alias Pinocho, told Semana magazine this month he was willing to turn himself in. On 12 September the president gave his defence and justice ministers a week to secure that, and ruled out negotiating. The deadline passed. After Monday’s operation the president posted three words at him: “Sigues tú, ‘Pinocho’” (“You’re next, ‘Pinocho’”).

For anyone living or investing on this coast, the key question is whether an armed strike still works. This one shut the city for three days, so the group has shown it still can. Its extortion income rests on that ability.

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