By David Escobar Moreno and Staff, EL ESPECTADOR, June 11, 2025
(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator)
The Director of the National Police reported that the pistol fired at Democratic Center Party Congressman Miguel Uribe was purchased legally in the United States in 2020. EL ESPECTADOR shows a panorama of this illegal market. According to information from the Armed Forces, six of every ten weapons seized since 2021 came from the United States.
One hundred eighty Police and Attorney General’s Office staff are working night and day to investigate the crime that has shaken the country since the afternoon of last June 7: the attack by hit men on Miguel Uribe Turbay, the Senator that received the most votes in Colombia’s last elections in 2022. General Carlos Fernando Triana, Director of the National Police, revealed details about the source of the weapon with which, according to video evidence, we see the moment at which a 15-year-old teenager shot the Presidential candidate. The Police Director said that the weapon was a 9 millimeter Glock pistol acquired legally on August 6, 2020 in Arizona by a foreigner about whom right now there is no further information.[1]
The Armed Forces have been investigating for years to learn how it is that weapons from the United States are ending up in the hands of criminal gangs here. It’s not the first time we see that weapons coming from the United States are fueling a good part of the violence that people are experiencing in the Colombian countryside.
Classified information in the hands of the Commanding General of the Armed Forces and viewed by EL ESPECTADOR reveals that there are several legal and illegal routes by which weapons are being introduced, and the principal method is by parcels sent from United States territory. The classified document also shows that since 2021, six out of every ten weapons seized by authorities have come from the United States. The rest come from Europe.
Besides that, the reports in the possession of this newspaper maintain that there is a black market that all the organized gangs have a hand in: Clan del Golfo, FARC Dissidents, ELN, and other criminal gangs. As with a plurality of the purchasers, it’s been difficult to trace who it was that bought the weapon used in the attack on Uribe Turbay. There is an alarming additional ingredient: The Commanding General of the Army “is concerned” because on some occasions, members and former members of the Colombian Army take part in this criminal supply chain.
Up to now, neither the Police nor the Attorney General’s Office have furnished clues as to who planned the attack that took place in the Fontibon locality.[2]
One of the classified reports states that weapons can be camouflaged in merchandise, and if they are wider and larger weapons, they would be separated in different packages that could enter through the airports at El Dorado and Rionegro, or in containers through the ports of Barranquilla, Cartagena, Santa Marta, and Buenaventura. In that same report, the Armed Forces explain the strategic importance that Central America and the Caribbean have for the weapons traffic. According to investigations by military intelligence, criminal organizations in the region, especially in the Dominican Republic, are the ones in charge of contacting Colombia’s armed gangs.
Their role is to act as intermediaries or facilitators so that the Colombian gangs nail down the shipments of weapons from the United States. The matter is so delicate in that country, and in others in Central America and the Caribbean, that in February of 2025 the governments of those regions got together in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital. Their objective was to consolidate public policies that would prevent the illicit trafficking and proliferation of weapons, munitions, and explosives. The Commanding General’s reports say that there are two specific ways that weapons are introduced into this country. The first is the direct method: the traffickers travel out of the country to carry out the purchase, but the cartels are committed to transferring the weapons into Colombia.
The second is the indirect method: A person in the United States sends a “package” to an intermediary in the Dominican Republic and that person in the same way then sends it to their contact in Colombia. In this strategy they use false names and addresses so as not to leave any trail, not even the locations of the messaging here in the national territory.
Another piece of information that the documents include is that right now the explosives and weapons are exchanged for coca paste that is produced here in this country. Besides paying for the weapons shipments with a substance for illegal use, the report notes that the armed groups and the criminals also pay cash for illegal weapons, with money they gained through drug trafficking and human trafficking.
In the last five years, the Police and the Attorney General’s Office have identified the extent of the minimal control they have over this black market and its impact on the situation of violence facing this country. For example, in October of 2023, prosecutors in Cali captured Army Major Andrés Alberto Barreto Álvarez. They accused him of belonging to a network dedicated to illegal trafficking of small arms and long guns that were coming from the United States. In a more recent case, in March of 2024, the Police confiscated an arsenal made up of parts for 14 rifles and at least 10 small arms at El Dorado airport. That war equipment had come from places in the United States and it was camouflaged among clothing, toys, and domestic appliances.
According to the Police, the final destination of that shipment was to be criminal gangs that operate around Bogotá and Cundinamarca. What we know so far about the weapon used in the attack on Miguel Uribe, is that it was a pistol that could be obtained for nearly 13 million pesos (roughly USD $3,265 at current exchange rates) if purchased at Indumil, the government’s industrial business that manufactures and sells weapons. In the black market, sources familiar with the process assure us, you can get it for about 6 million (roughly USD $1,500 at current exchange rates). That’s because it’s a pistol in high demand; it’s usually used by urban criminal gangs and is not favored by guerrillas because it doesn’t adapt well to humid and jungle conditions.
While the investigators are trying to determine how the 9 millimeter Glock got into Colombia, and the steps by which it ended up in the hands of the teenage hit man, they are also trying to learn the location of his cell phone, which he was holding just moments before firing the shot. The device would shed light on who was behind the attack that has left Miguel Uribe in critical condition and has put the country on the alert for a resurgence of the violence.[3]
[1] The purchaser was Joe Charles Anderson or Charles Joe Anderson. See YouTubeLAFM Colombia, https://www.afmlcom.co and dailymail,co.uk/news/article 14794841/aizona-gun-shop-plot-to-assassinate-miguel-uribe-turbay.htmlB
[2] There is more current information on this. See Footnote 3.
[3] Some of these questions appear to have been answered. See “La policía de Colombia detiene a “El Costeño”, quinto implicado en el atentado contra Miguel Uribe Turbay” EL PAÍS, JULY 5, 2025