Nine months after the shooting of presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay in a leafy Bogotá park, the gang behind the killing have been rounded up and are facing justice.
The masterminds, though, are still at large. Circumstantial evidence points to a political assassination called in by an ex-FARC faction called the Segunda Marquetalia. But other theories exist.
And as the country prepares for the next rounds of elections, the youthful Uribe – seen by many as a presidential hopeful – is conspicuous by his absence.
We look back at killing that rocked Bogotá in 2025, and who might be behind it.
How did the shooting unfold?
Uribe was gunned down in Parque El Golfito, a green space in bustling Modelia on the western edge of Bogotá, on June 7, during a walkabout in the barrio where he met local business owners and climbed on a beer crate to deliver an impromptu address to a small crowd.
See also: Miguel Uribe hospitalized after assassination attempt
The senator was shot at close range twice in the head by a 15-year-old gunman wielding a Glock pistol in the crowd, who then fled but was himself shot in the leg by Uribe’s protection squad and captured in a nearby street.
Uribe was hospitalized and underwent several emergency surgeries before dying from his wounds on August 11, more than two months later.
Who was Miguel Uribe?
The 39-year-old senator was nationally recognized and scion of a political family. His grandfather Julio César Turbay was president from 1978 to 1982, and his mother the journalist Diana Turbay kidnapped by the Medellín cartel in 1991 who died in a botched rescue attempt, a tragedy immortalized by Gabriel García Márquez in his non-fiction book News of a Kidnapping.
Even though he was raised as a legacy politician, and a key candidate for the right-wing Centro Democratico, Uribe nevertheless garnered support across the political spectrum for his hard work and attention to detail, more technocrat than populist, and potentially a unifying figure.
It was perhaps typical of Uribe that the day he was shot he in an unsung corner of the city meeting everyday folks.
What was the impact of his assassination?
Many mourned the loss of the young senator, married with four children. In reality, Uribe’s death was just one of many in Colombia during 2025 with 187 social leaders and human rights defenders murdered nationwide, according to data from conflict thinktank Indepaz.
The senator’s killing had an outsized impact for several reasons. First, Bogotá, unusually for a megacity, has almost half the homicide rate than many smaller cities and some rural areas with long-running conflicts between gangs and armed groups.
Secondly, the many feared Uribe’s attack signaled a return to the 1980s when a wave of political killings – usually by extreme right-wing forces against left wing targets in cahoots with drug cartels – plagued Bogotá and many other Colombian cities.
But united condemnation of the attack quickly degenerated to finger-pointing between political factions with Uribe’s lawyer filing a complaint against President Gustavo Petro for alleged “harassment” of the senator.
Was Petro to blame?
An early theory floated by the late senator’s lawyer was that the attack was a “hate crime”, which in Colombia covers persecution for ideological views. The argument went that Petro crossed the line with his itchy Twitter finger: in their complaint the lawyer presented a 20-page document with 42 presidential tweets disparaging Uribe.
While acknowledging that Petro was in no way linked to the physical attack, he had created a “favorable environment” for anyone with a serious grudge to take out the senator, said the lawyers, though this didn’t explain why a 15-year-old – not a likely candidate for political grievances – was coerced to pull the trigger.
And by the end of June new evidence emerged from the shooter himself. The youth didn’t even know who his target was the senator, or indeed who was Miguel Uribe.
And other pieces of the puzzle fell into place, clarifying that the shooter was hired for cash by an organized criminal gang that had planned the killing in detail.
If it was so well planned, why did they get caught?
Good question. The contract killers calling themselves Plata o Plomo (‘Silver or Lead’) left a trail of evidence starting with the wounded gunman captured with minutes of the shooting.
Next to fall was Carlos Mora, alias ‘El Veneco’, who drove the young assassin, followed a few days later by 19-year-old Katherine Martínez, alias ‘Gabriela’, who delivered the pistol.
Gabriela’s arrest gave the first clues to a wider conspiracy: the webcammer was tracked down to the regional capital of Florencia, Caquetá, a jungle department of Colombia with high presence of armed groups.
CCTV footage from Modelia placed her inside the car with the gunman, and she later confessed to transporting the gun itself.With CCTV footage, and information from Gabriela and El Veneco, other key members of the gang were soon rounded up including two other getaway drivers and a middleman for hiring the 15-year-old.
Seems like a very amateur operation…
Plata o Plomo was a loose group of criminals drawn from the Bogotá underworld, and many had worked together before. The leader was Elder José Arteaga, alias Chipi, who in a rather unlikely twist also ran a hair salon in Engativá.
When not trimming beards, Chipi was immersed in crime with a history of extortion, violence and armed robbery, and was linked to the murder of a Mexican businessman in Medellín in 2024.
See also: Arrests made but still questions in Uribe shooting.
He was also quite ruthless: according to Gabriela, Chipi was planning to cover his tracks by killing both El Veneco and the 15-year-old hired assassin. Being captured early likely saved their lives.
Chipi himself became the subject of a national manhunt until his luck ran out on July 5. He was captured hiding in a house in Engativá by a special police unit a month after the shooting, just a few kilometers from where it took place.
So, case closed?
Not so fast. Chipi was just one link in a longer chain. According to Gabriela, now a key witness, the hairdresser told her the murder contract was for 700 million pesos, around US$190,000.
This amount of cash pointed to a bigger player.
In Colombia there are plenty of candidates to choose from, and no shortage of pundits to point the finger.
Examples please?
Sure. Journalist and presidential hopeful Vicky Dávila accused Iván Mordisco, commander of the Estado Mayor Central – EMC – a dissident FARC faction fighting the state in the southwest of the country. She claimed to have insider information from military intelligence that also pointed to the likelihood of more assassinations of right-wing figures.
Her theory was backed by interior minister Armando Benedetti, who also saw reason for the EMC to stir up trouble in Bogotá as revenge for the war being waged against the group in Cauca.
However, no direct evidence was presented, and that the EMC denied any involvement, calling the allegations “a media strategy”.
Petro claimed involvement by the mysterious “Board”, a mythical super-cartel fused from drug gangs, guerrillas and paramilitaries. Petro portrayed himself as another potential victim: The Board was also plotting his own assassination, he said.
Wow. Anyone and everyone could have done it.
Exactly. Pick the political flavor of your favorite conspiracy. More fanciful pitches were that the extreme right had planned it themselves to stoke a coup against Petro – who would likely get the blame – and at the same time eliminate the popular Uribe from the candidate’s list.
Or that the extreme left wanted to take out an effective political opponent from the presidential race.
One problem for investigators was the complex networks between criminal gangs, drug cartels and guerrilla groups, partly worsened by Petro’s Total Peace plan which had split armed groups into smaller and more dangerous factions.
See also: Peace Plan has caused more conflict, says thinktank
The Plata o Plomo gang was clearly working for financial gain. But despite capturing eight members by the end of August, the important detail of who paid them – and why – was yet to be revealed.
Maybe the gang was scared to reveal the backers?
Quite likely. In the dog-eat-dog world of Colombian crime, and where people in jail are regularly murdered, spilling the beans is not recommended. But one more key suspect was emerging: a mysterious character known as ‘El Viejo’.
His capture came at the end of October after months of police work. Clues emerged from messages from El Viejo on Gabriela’s phone. She also confessed to transporting guns and explosives for him on various occasions in Bogotá.
Soon police had a name, Simeón Pérez Marroquín, and a place, in a remote fortified farmstead on the vast plains of Meta. A helicopter team swooped in and took him back to Bogotá.
So where did El Viejo lead?
El Viejo, the ninth capture in the Uribe case, was the most significant. While Chipi coordinated the killing on the ground, it seems El Viejo was closer to the backers.
Another key detail suggests the plot was months in the making: El Viejo was stalking Uribe in March, three months before the shooting in Modelia, and making notes on the senators movements and bodyguards.
Moreover, El Viejo, while living partly in Usme in the south of Bogotá, and on the farm in Meta, also had links to an area of Caquetá known as a stronghold of Segunda Marquetalia.
Segunda Marquetalia? Sounds more like a Cuban singer…
In fact, a recycled FARC guerrilla group named after the original rebel hideout in Tolima. Its leaders were senior commanders who abandoned the peace process in 2019 after persecution by the right-wing Duque government and threats to extradite them to the U.S.
State prosecutors accused some of drug trafficking, charges the commanders claimed were invented. According to Insight Crime, the group lead by Iván Márquez – formerly number two in the FARC – reactivated rebel units in both Colombia and Venezuela, where the group had hidden camps.
But in 2021 Colombian special forces pursued the leaders in Venezuelan territory killing three of the top commander. Further fighting in 2022 wounded Márquez, in fact he was declared dead by Colombian authorities before reappearing in a video in 2024, though he is rumoured to have suffered severe injuries.
A reason to get angry?
Perhaps. A plausible theory is that the Segunda Marquetalia was seeking revenge and targeted Miguel Uribe as a visible – and vulnerable – figure of the Colombian right wing.
Colombian prosecutors claim to have found a digital trail linking El Viejo with the “criminal circle” of Iván Márquez’s armed group. And his stalking of Uribe months before the shooting suggests a long-term plot.
And if such a plot existed, it coincided with the breakdown of peace talks between Petro’s government and the Segunda Marquetalia at the start of 2025, perhaps another spur to action.
But this evidence is yet to be tested in court. El Viejo is jailed while awaiting trial for aggravated homicide, even while prosecutors are offering him a legal deal for information leading to the ultimate masterminds.
So will El Viejo talk?
That’s what investigators are hoping for. Two of the gang so far sentenced, Gabriela and El Veneco, have collaborated for reduced sentences, both getting 20 years in jail.
With presidential elections in May, and candidates on the stump, Colombia needs clarity.