Santa Marta Armed Strike Shuts Tayrona Road After Police Kill Group’s No. 2

Colombia · Security

A single police operation in the Sierra Nevada has put Colombia’s best-known Caribbean tourist corridor under a 48-hour shutdown order from an armed group.

If you are in Santa Marta this week, or you have a Tayrona day trip booked, the Santa marta armed strike is the thing to plan around. It began on Monday night, hours after police killed the second in command of the group that has taxed this coast for years. It is aimed squarely at the one road that runs east out of the city, and that road is how everyone reaches the beaches.

What the Santa Marta armed strike actually restricts

An armed strike, or paro armado, is not a government measure. It is an order issued by an illegal group telling people to stay home and shut their businesses, backed by the threat of what happens if they do not. This one was declared for 48 hours in a communiqué attributed to the leadership of the Autodefensas Conquistadoras de la Sierra Nevada, known locally as Los Pachenca.

The area named is a corridor rather than a list of towns: Santa Marta itself, the Troncal del Caribe, and the Zona Bananera to the south. No official count of affected municipalities has been published, so treat any precise number you see with caution.

What has been confirmed is narrow but real. Two buses belonging to Consorcio Ziruma were burned on the Troncal del Caribe near the bridge at Barrio 11 de Noviembre on Monday afternoon. Armed men ordered the passengers and drivers off first. Blockades were reported at 11 de Noviembre, Calabazo and Marquetalia, and residents around Guachaca heard gunfire through the afternoon. No deaths or injuries from the blockades have been reported.

The operation that set it off

The operation was run on Monday by the Antinarcotics Directorate of the National Police, working with the Fiscalía and with air support from the air force. It took place 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. The army was running its own operations in the same area on the same day.

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 had held the job only since early September, when his predecessor was killed. El Espectador and El Heraldo also report that a son of the group’s top leader died in the same operation, though no official has confirmed that specifically.

De la Espriella spoke at the presidential palace in Bogotá on Monday, not in Santa Marta. Anyone who does not submit, he said, will “terminar como el Cholo y los otros seis bandidos dados de baja: en una bolsa y muertos”. That is: end up like Cholo and the other six, in a bag and dead. He then flew to Santa Marta to chair a security council. What that meeting decided has not been made public.

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. Estimates of its strength vary widely: around 250 in one military intelligence assessment, 800 in a government figure, about 1,100 by the group’s own claim. It works across roughly 14 municipalities in Magdalena, La Guajira and Cesar.

Cocaine moving through Caribbean ports is part of the business. The other part is the city itself. Reporting by El Espectador in March put the group’s share of extortion in Santa Marta’s tourism economy at about 95 percent. Businesses were charged registration fees of roughly COP 300,000 to COP 1 million (about US$94 to US$313 at this week’s rate). 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 has been pushing into the same territory, and 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, 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, and advises avoiding the affected stretch for now.

The road is disrupted rather than formally closed, and blockades here have been cleared before through talks with local communities. Tayrona also closes on a fixed schedule agreed with the Sierra Nevada peoples. 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 are suspended for 24 hours in Guachaca, Calabazo, Bonda, Minca and 11 de Noviembre, plus any other school flagged by risk assessment. Minca is a place a lot of visitors stay. Carrying a passenger on a motorcycle is banned across the district for the same period. No curfew has been imposed.

Neither Simón Bolívar airport nor the port had issued a statement at the time of writing. The practical advice is unglamorous. Stay in the city, postpone the trip east by a day or two, and do not try to drive through a blockade.

The wider bet the government is making

This administration took office on 7 August and has spent its first weeks dismantling the negotiated approach of its predecessor. Arrest warrants that had been suspended for peace talks are active again. A submission law has been announced offering 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 this month he was willing to turn himself in. The government gave its 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’.”

For anyone living or investing on this coast, the thing to watch is not the body count. It is whether an armed strike still works. If the corridor reopens quickly, the group has lost the ability to shut a city down, which is what its extortion income rests on.

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