Bogotá, Colombia — Investigators are combing Colombia for Elder José Arteaga Hernández, alias ‘El Costeño’, a former hair salon owner and an alleged career criminal linked to drug trafficking and hit squads.
He’s wanted in connection with the June 7 attempted assassination of Senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, who remains in serious condition in a Bogotá hospital.
Arteaga, who is allegedly seen on security camera footage with others involved with the shooting in the city’s Modelia neighborhood, has since disappeared, prompting a nationwide manhunt and police to offer a COP 300 million (USD $73,000) reward for information leading to his capture.
Arteaga is the suspected leader of a criminal gang hired to kill the 39-year politician from the right-leaning Centro Democratico (Democratic Center) party, who was shot three times during a public appearance in a park following a walking tour of local businesses.
Three weeks after the shooting, Uribe is showing slight signs of improvements after several emergency operations.
But in another blow to his family, the stricken senator’s grandmother, Nydia Quintera, died aged 93 on June 30, the family announced. She was a former Colombian first lady married to Uribe’s grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay, the country’s president from 1978 to 1982.
Miguel Uribe was shot twice in the head and once in the leg from close range by a 15-year-old gunman who was allegedly promised cash by a local gang to kill the senator.
The would-be-assassin was captured minutes after the shooting, with three other accomplices present at the scene also arrested in the following days. All four have been detained by the prosecution office and charged with attempted murder — charges they deny.
A contract to kill
In the weeks following the shooting, investigators have pieced together detailed information on how the hit attempt was carried out.
Last week Colombia’s chief prosecutor, Luz Adriana Camargo, announced that information collected so far strongly suggested the shooting was politically motivated.
“We have been able to verify through evidence that it is a planned act, that a series of preparatory activities were carried out,” she said in a public statement.
CCTV camera footage has revealed members of the gang revising the barrio and the park where the senator was shot two days before the attack, and the same characters with the captured shooter just minutes before.
Testimony from the detainees, filtered to local media, has also supported the theory that the gang was put together for a fee of 700 million pesos (US$175,000), with different members assigned roles such as look-outs, get-away and tasked with transporting the gun.
The pistol used was modified to fire on rapid burst, with modified ammunition of a type used by assassins, hallmarks of a contract killing. It was also reported that the gun, a 9mm Glock, had been purchased legally in the United States in 2020.
But if the attack was outsourced, who ordered the hit? Despite much speculation in the Colombian media, there is still no certainty over the intellectual and financial backers.
A missing link
Any breakthrough could depend on the capture of Elder Arteaga, also known by the aliases ‘El Costeño’ or ‘Chipi’, identified as the fifth gang member spotted in the camera footage, and named by detainees as their supposed leader in Modelia, in charge of recruiting and briefing the team.
Investigators believe the missing man is a vital link to whoever ordered the attack.
“He is an extremely important person for the investigation,” Colombian police chief General Carlos Fernando Triana told the media last week while announcing the bounty for Arteaga’s capture.
The hunt for Arteaga has caused a wave of interest into the missing criminal in Colombia with fresh details emerging daily.
Piquing much public curiosity is the fact that the suspect ran a boutique and hair salon in Engativá, a barrio close to Bogotá’s El Dorado airport, and previously posted innocuous photos on social media posing with clients after a haircut.
A history of violence
This cheery façade masks a criminal career going back 20 years, according to Colombian authorities, who have released information that El Costeño was known since the 2000s for assault, robbery, extortion, and violence in and around Bogotá.
He was jailed in 2002, during which time he befriended William González, the same criminal picked up by police two weeks ago after having been identified by camera footage as a co-organizer with Arteaga and as a get-away driver for the failed hit. González is currently in custody.
“[Arteaga] is a leader, with a proven criminal capacity that implies he’s been in prison. He organizes a criminal operation, gives instructions to a group of between eight and 10 people,” Triana told Semana magazine last week.
And statements from a captured female member of the gang, 19-year-old Katerine Martínez, alias ‘Gabriela’, who admitted to being a criminal associate of El Costeño for two years, suggests the former hairdresser was plotting to murder some of his co-conspirators after the shooting “to cover his tracks”.
Filling a vacuum
Such testimony highlights the importance to the authorities of finding Elder Arteaga. He could have plenty of hideouts.
Investigators have said that while his main activities were based in Bogotá, El Costeño had connections in far-flung areas of the country such as Florencia, Caquetá, a jungle region and hotbed for dissident guerrilla groups, and on the opposite side of the country in the coastal area of Urubá, a ground zero for drug gangs linked to former paramilitary armies.
Meanwhile in the political arena, the lack of hard evidence of a mastermind has created a vacuum filled with speculation.
Miguel Uribe’s lawyers on June 24 filed a complaint against President Gustavo Petro, accusing him of “harassment” against the senator and presidential candidate.
The complaint stated that, while it could not be confirmed that Petro’s comments were the motive for the attack, they could have created a “favorable environment”. The lawyers presented a 20-page document with 42 tweets by Petro mentioning Uribe.
Such conjecture is countered by all the evidence pointing to a pre-planned attack, rather than a hate crime stirred up by the president’s tweets. But the puzzle remains: who wanted Miguel Uribe dead? The former hairdresser known as El Costeño could be the missing piece.
Featured image: Police mugshot of alias El Costeño, and an image from social media of the former barber at work in his hair salon in Engativá, a barrio of Bogotá.
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