ACSN extends lockdown of Colombia’s Caribbean coast to Friday morning – Colombia News

Santa Marta-based organized crime group ACSN said Wednesday that the lockdown it has imposed on parts of Colombia’s Caribbean coast will be lifted on Friday morning.

In its first formal statement, the ACSN said that “the armed strike announced for 72 hours will end at 7:00AM on Friday 25 September 2026.”

The lockdown, which was initially called for 48 hours on Monday, has devastated the legal economy in the port city, particularly after ACSN assassins uploaded videos of them opening fire at stores that ignored the order to social media.

The online videos and half a dozen burnt buses and taxis all but cleared the streets of Santa Marta, which became a ghost town on Tuesday.

“We have never seen anything like this,” one Santa Marta resident told news program El Reporte Coronell.

President Abelardo de la Espriella announced the militarization of Santa Marta, but this was barely visible in the city’s downtown area and in the majority of Santa Marta’s neighborhoods.

“There are no police or soldiers in the streets, the people feel unprotected and are in panic,” said journalist Javier Manjarres on social media platform X.

“The current situation is a consequence of the behavior of the security forces and the decisions taken by the National Government in regards to our organization,” the organized crime group said in their statement.

The ACSN admitted that the clandestine lockdown was the result of the killing of Jose Luis Perez, a.k.a. “Cholo,” one of its commanders in the region around the Sierra Nevada mountain range just outside the city.

According to the group, security forces executed Cholo in front of his wife after his arrest.

An 18-year-old farmhand with no ties to the organization was also executed by the security, his family told media.

The lockdown has been imposed throughout the Magdalena and La Guajira provinces, a region where the group dominates organized crime and controls drug trafficking route to the Caribbean.