Public security in Medellin has improved dramatically after Mayor Daniel Quintero introduced a new security policy and local crime syndicate Oficina de Envigado lost power.
According to the mayor, Medellin’s homicide rate dropped to its lowest point in history.
Sources close to the authorities in the City of Eternal Spring told Caracol Radio that the number of gangs and their members also dropped significantly since 2019.
According to Caracol, more than 2,600 people in Medellin were employed by an estimated 82 gangs in the city’s metropolitan area earlier this year.
This is considerably less than the 5,000 members of 240 gangs that were registered just two years ago.
Who is running crime in Medellin?
La Oficina would control 36 of the currently active gangs (GDCO’s). The remaining gangs would have under the control of approximately 10 smaller Organized Crime Groups (GDO’s).
Some of these GDO’s, like “La Terraza” and “Los Triana” have been around since the reign of late drug lord Pablo Escobar, who founded La Oficina in the 1980’s.
The Officina and the smaller GDO’s exercise control over their own parts of the city and in some cases have specialized in specific rackets.
La Terraza has been Medellin’s most notorious assassination squad since the days of the Medellin Cartel.
The gangs that joined the other GDO’s have long been involved in extortion and drug dealing in the city’s poorer districts.
The rise in power of the smaller GDO’s may be the consequence of their activity in other parts of the Antioquia where their presence was noticed by Indepaz, an NGO that monitors the activity of illegal armed groups.
Medellin crime and security statistics
Gang government in Medellin
(Source: EAFIT University and University of Chicago)
New security policy apparently working
Despite the potentially volatile situation caused by the GDO’s and the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, Medellin’s authorities have reported dropping victimization and crime rates.
The city’s homicide rate dropped a staggering 45% from 23.8 murders per 100,000 inhabitants in 2019 to a historically low 11.3 last year, according to Mayor Daniel Quintero.
The number of armed robberies reported to the Medellin Police Department dropped from more than 25,000 in 2019 to less than 23,000 last year.
The reported reduction in victimization and violent crime followed the implementation of the security policy of Quintero, who took office in 2020.
Quintero created a Non-Violence Secretary to reduce violence together with the Security Secretary, ending the disastrous “tough on crime” policy of his predecessor, former Mayor Federico Gutierrez.
This strategy appears to be a success, according to Emilio Angarita, the director of the Medellin Public Security Observatory of the local Antioquia University, told political news website La Silla Vacia last year.
It seems to me that this secretary of Non-Violence is something that marks a very big difference with the past administration.
Antioquia University investigator Emilio Angarita
Medellin’s secret history of violence against women and girls
The gangs’ influence on peace
Oficina de Envigado members
Medellin’s latest mayor is not the first to claim that his government is responsible for the dropping crime rate.
Whether this is true is not entirely certain as the peaceful coexistence between the City of Eternal Spring’s organized crime groups often proved a key factor.
La Oficina and its gangs want to take part in the proposed “Total Peace” program of President Gustavo Petro, Henry Holguin of Medellin peace advocacy group Sinergia said earlier this month.
The president’s proposed peace policy would offer members of illegal armed groups judicial benefits in exchange for their demobilization and disarmament, and participation in peace-building projects.
Also the AGC has expressed interest in taking part in Petro’s Total Peace initiative.
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